Forced Mutations
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: A geneticist's research holds the key to reversing mutations. Starring Hank. FINISHED. Hope you all enjoyed it....and thanks for all of the reviews! Look for the first chapter of the sequel coming soon!
1. Default Chapter

Chapter : The Dinner

                "Hey, Hank?"

                Dr. Henry McCoy turned at the sound of his name. Very few people ever intruded on his sanctum, down here in the medlabs. Only one person would be down here this close to dinner. "Jubilee?" he asked. "Why are you not upstairs obtaining sustenance?"

                Jubilee giggled as she bounced into the labs. She looked much better, he noticed. She was starting to lose the extreme thinness she had had since her wedding, and was starting to look quite pretty. "I was actually on my way to dinner." She tilted her head to look up at his blue-furred countenance. "Aren't you coming?"

                "I shall fulfill my body's physical necessity for nourishment later, Jubilee," he said. "I must complete my paper and have it mailed tonight if it is to make the next publication deadline for _Genetics Today_."    

                Jubilee handed him a small white envelope. "I'm out of stamps and this has to get out. It's the thank you card for Amanda. Remember Amanda Greene?"

                "Jubilee," Hank chided her. "Of course I remember. She was at your wedding."

                Jubilee nodded. "Yeah, she gave me this absolutely lovely engraved silver goblet set for a wedding present. I kept meaning to write her a thank you note, and I kept forgetting. I finally did it today." She showed it to him. "I was going to ask you for a stamp, but if you're going to the post office anyway, do you think you could drop it in the box for me?"

                "Certainly." Hank took the envelope.

                Jubilee started to dig into her pocket for her wallet, but Hank stopped her. "I shall take care of it, Jubilee," he said. "You need not worry."

                She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks Hank," she said cheerfully. "I'll see you later?"

                "I shall look forward to it."

                Hank dropped the disk containing his paper into a stiff, padded envelope, wrote on the outside 'fragile', paste a stamp on the corner of Jubilee's letter, and got up. Putting both envelopes into a pocket of his capacious coat, he took the back door out of the mansion.

                The post office was closed and silent, as he had already determined it would be. The two blue mailboxes outside the office, however, were always available to receive mail. He slipped his envelope into the 'out-of-town' box and reached inside for Jubilee's envelope. He was about to put it into the 'local' box when he stopped. 

                He did remember Amanda. Jubilee had introduced them at her wedding; and Hank had liked her immediately. She was a quiet young woman, older than Jubilee but younger than himself…but not by much. She seemed to like him as well, and they had spent some time talking. They had exchanged phone numbers and addresses before she left, but he had rather absent-mindedly forgotten to call her, and she had not called him. Had she forgotten him? He rather doubted it. Perhaps she might be feeling like a little company.

                He drove back downtown to the block of apartments that she lived at. The Willows, said the sign over the door. He couldn't see any willow trees, and smiled at the incongruity of the name and the place. He was about to go in and try to find her apartment when he heard a car door slam, and he looked around. It was Amanda. He walked over to where she was locking the car door.

*                                                              *                                                              *

The night was cold. Amanda shivered as she got out of the car.

                It was only the beginning of October, but it was unseasonably cold. The air was nippy, with just a hint of frost. Unless she was very much mistaken, it was going to snow before Thanksgiving; and if it did that then it meant they'd have a white Christmas. She giggled. This Christmas she was a free woman, Bruce was permanently out of the picture, and she was in her own place. 

                She could still remember last Christmas. Bruce had been out of town, and she was holed up in his parent's vacation cottage nursing a badly-injured young girl the river had washed up outside on the back lawn. She still shuddered at the thought of 'Julie's' injuries. Of course, she'd found out later her friend's name was Jubilee, but she'd still found herself thinking of her as Julie.

                At least everything was turning out for the best for her friend. Amanda wasn't so sure about herself. She had a new job, teaching students biology at Columbia University; but her real passion, genetic research, was on hold. Seemingly indefinitely.

                She sighed, grabbed her bag out of the back of the car and turned, to run almost directly into a large, blue-furred form standing behind her. She jumped, startled, then sighed and chuckled when she realized who it was. "Dr. McCoy! Sheesh, you scared me."

                "Rest assured, that was not my intention, Dr. Greene," he said, his voice a low rumble in his massive chest. "Please accept my apologies."

                "No apologies necessary," she laughed.

                He opened his mouth to say something, but Amanda hushed him. "It's way too cold to stand out here talking," she said. "Come on up."

                She climbed the two flights of steps up to her apartment, Hank following. The man in the apartment beside her was coming out just as she was going in, and he gave Hank a goggle-eyed stare and a slit-eyed glare, but Hank barely gave it a thought. He was used to getting stares like that. He really should have worn his image inducer, which was in his room, but as he was only going to the post office, he hadn't thought it necessary. She had seen him as he really looked at Logan and Jubilee's wedding, and it hadn't bothered her a bit.

                She opened the door and ushered him inside, closing the door. She took his coat off his shoulders and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair, then did the same with her own. The bag, with her paperwork in it, went on the chair seat, and then she walked into her kitchen and turned on the light. Hank followed her in and frowned at the empty bowls sitting on the floor. "If I remember correctly, Jubilee mentioned you were companioned by a canine," he said. 

                Amanda smiled sadly. "Yeah, Buster. He's my Pomeranian." She sighed as she put the kettle on for tea. "I just didn't feel right leaving him here alone all day. The university needed a teacher to take the evening biology class, and they asked me to do it. I took it, and they're paying me the extra, thank goodness, but it means I'm out of the apartment from seven in the morning until about ten in the evening. It's not fair to him. So I took him back to my mother's and she told me she'd be glad to keep him."

                The kettle started to whistle as its water boiled, and she pulled it off, poured it into two mugs, and added tea bags. Hank studied the three small chairs in the kitchen, and said, "If it is all right with you, Dr. Greene, I believe I'll make my way into your living room. I sincerely doubt that your chairs are built to handle my size and weight."

                Amanda blinked. "Oh, go right ahead," she said, leading the way into her living room and gesturing to the much more substantially built couch. "But please call me Amanda, Dr, McCoy. I don't hold with formality with my friends."

                "I shall do so," he said gravely, seating himself on the couch, "Only if you call me Hank."

                Amanda laughed, seating herself in a battered overstuffed easy chair. "All right, then, Hank. Now, if I may ask, what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

                He took an envelope from his pocket. "Jubilee asked me to deliver this for her," he said. "A thank-you note, I believe, for the lovely present you gave her upon the momentous occasion of her marriage."

                Amanda grinned as she opened the envelope and read the brief note penned in Jubilee's slightly messy handwriting. "Please tell her I said thank you," she said as she folded the card up and slipped it back into the envelope. "How is she?"

                Hank sighed. "She is recovering from the surgery I performed on her a few days ago," he said. "I doubt you knew; and she was quite adept at hiding what she felt, but there was a sizable splinter of wood passed through the soft tissue of her uterine wall and pierced her ovary."

                Amanda sat there, face pale with shock. "I didn't know," she said. "Oh God. It must have been excruciating! How did she handle it all this time?" She shook her head. "How is she doing now?"

                "Much better, both physically and emotionally. It was quite some time before she could talk about it to any of us, understandably. She has, however finally come to terms with the incident and is healing now."

                "I'm glad." Amanda took a sip of her tea. "I like her. She's a wonderful girl. God, you should have seen what she looked like when I first picked her up off the riverbank. She looked as though someone did his damn level best to try to kill her."

                Hank looked soberly into the mug in his hand. "She very nearly did," he said. "She is making arrangements to have the scars on her body surgically removed. She does not wish to be reminded of the incident."

                "Hell, I wouldn't either." Amanda was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, I'm being a poor hostess. Would you like something to eat?" She opened the refrigerator. "I haven't had time to do my shopping for the week, but I might have some leftovers still good."

                Hank smiled. "Some refreshment would not go awry," he said, "But I have no wish to deprive you of any stores of food you may have, as excellent as your cooking is," he said. 

Amanda turned pink. "You haven't even tasted my cooking," she said.

Hank smiled. "Jubilee told me of your culinary expertise," he said. "But it is not that to which I was referring. We have not yet celebrated the momentous occasion of your obtaining a teaching job. Would you care to dine out with me tonight?"

Amanda stared…and suddenly realized her mouth was open. She closed it abruptly. _Her?_ Famous geneticist Henry McCoy was asking _her_ out on a date? She belatedly realized that he was expecting an answer, and she floundered, "Uh…yes…um…This is rather sudden…uh…is what I'm wearing okay?"

                Hank was now the one floundering, as he tried to think of where to take her.  Where did the other guys take the girls? He scrambled for the name of a restaurant, and came up with, "Della Notte." Charles had entertained Moira there once when she was in town on business, and he remembered it as a fine place, with good food. It wasn't the kind of place where one had to dress, though, thank goodness, because he was wearing khakis and a plain T-shirt.

                Amanda blinked. She had been there once. The food had been lovely, but Bruce had been so irritated with the waiter that they'd never gone there again. He thought the waiter had been hitting on her. "I've been there before," she said. "Please wait while I change into something other than my lab outfit, please?"

                Hank nodded. "The restaurant is not an excessively fancy place, but I do not think they will appreciate the smell of your dissection subject permeating the atmosphere."

Amanda grinned. The evening class had been dissecting rats, and she smelled of formaldehyde. She nodded, he grinned amiably, and she whisked into her room and closed the door.

                "What are you doing, girl," she muttered to herself as she whipped through her closet for something suitable. "You've got a ton of papers to grade, you've got to plan the lesson tomorrow, and here you are running out to dinner like some lovesick girl." She shook her head at her own silliness, but she didn't stop searching.

                She finally came out wearing a white blouse and teal colored twill pants. "Will this be okay?"

                Hank blinked, bemused. Amanda looked better than okay; she looked lovely. Her brownish-red hair fell loose around her heart-shaped face, and she wore just the barest hint of makeup. The color of the pants brought out the blue in her blue-gray eyes, and the silver wire-rimmed glasses looked somehow right on her. He stood up, placed his mug on the table, and offered her his arm. "Shall we go?"

                The restaurant wasn't crowded, and the hostess of the night got them settled into a seat quickly. Hank got a few stares from people, but, being used to them, he ignored them, and Amanda didn't even seem to notice the looks they were getting. He ordered the _petti di pollo Donna Bianca, _which was white chicken marinated in white wine and topped with eggplant and cheese. Amanda, he noted, shared his fondness for chicken, but opted for an entrée she could actually pronounce; she ordered their chicken marsala.

                She declined wine, which was a relief to Hank, as he felt he would have been compelled to drink also if she had opted to do so. But she insisted politely to the waiter that she didn't drink, and had settled for a glass of iced tea. As they worked on their appetizers, he talked with her about the project she had last been working on.

                "Oh," she said. "Yes. Well, unfortunately, Bruce has the bulk of my work at his laboratory. I have a few samples and most of my notes at home, but I don't have a laboratory to continue research, and I don't have access to the raw materials."

                "I recall the last paper you published said you were in the process of gene-mapping a sample substance, but I did not catch the name of the substance you were analyzing." 

                Amanda sipped her tea. "It's actually a sample of plant that a researcher brought back form a rather remote place in the rainforest," she said. "The 'plant' was actually proven to be a very primitive form of animal life. What was more significant, however, is the fact that there is a virus contained in the DNA coding. What I found was that the virus can trigger spontaneous morphological changes in higher-order organisms." She fell silent as the waitress came back with their orders, and then continued as she tucked her napkin into her lap. ""The morphological changes can take unexpected, interesting, bizarre forms. For example, when the virus was injected into one of our lab rats, the rat developed a secondary forelimb within twenty-four hours. The next rat exposed to the virus didn't develop the same characteristic, however; it developed an extraordinarily sharp sense of smell and taste. It developed quite a fondness for Brie, and stopped eating Swiss."

                Hank chuckled quietly. "This is an extremely interesting virus," he said. "Have you discovered how it does what it does?"

                Amanda sighed. "I got as far as finding out that it attacks the out-of-sequence proteins in the genetic code that produces mutations. As you know, mutations are already encoded into our DNA at birth; but having the X-factor doesn't necessarily mean one is going to become a mutant at puberty. Some people have the mutant gene and yet are perfectly normal humans. As of right now, there's no way to tell whether a person will become a mutant before the metamorphosis actually happens, but there's a possibility that if the research into this virus were to continue, then introducing the virus into a stem cell sample from the cord blood left after the child is born could trigger changes that will indicate whether the X-factor is present."

                Hank raised an eyebrow. "That is a major discovery indeed," he said.

                Amanda ran on. "Yes, and the possibility exists that we may figure out how it works and be able to turn it backwards, a sort of reverse metamorphosis. We could expose a mutant to the virus, and the virus would attack and reverse the mutation, leaving the subject a normal human."

                Hank was becoming quite interested indeed. "Tell me, Amanda," he said. "Would you consent to lending me some of your samples, and looking over your notes? I wish to see what kind of progress you may have made."

                Amanda looked wistful. "I wish I had access to a lab," she said, "then I can continue my research myself. But no, I don't mind if you borrow my notes. The samples, though, need to be handled quite carefully, and I'm afraid that if I take them out of my freezer they may be irrevocably destroyed."

                "The notes will be sufficient," Hank said, finishing off the last of his meal as Amanda pushed her empty plate away.

                "Can I ask you a question?" Amanda said quietly as she donned her coat and preceded him out of the restaurant. The cold took their breath away, and Hank ran an arm around her shoulders as they walked out to where his van was parked in the lot. She huddled up against him, soaking in the heat coming off his fur. He forebore answering until they got out to the car. He opened her door for her, and she again flashed him a bright smile as she slid into the front passenger seat. "Certainly," he said as he started the car.

                "If the technique could be perfected, and mutations reversed, would you take the opportunity?"

                Hank pondered the thought as he waited for the traffic light to change. "I may," he said. "This was not the way I began. The way I presently look was due to my own experiment gone awry. So yes, I believe that were the opportunity to arise, I might indeed take it." The light turned green and he pulled into traffic. "Why do you ask?"

                "Mmmm…no particular reason, I just…I think…You look better the way you are now," she said impulsively. "I can't imagine you looking like a normal human."

                Hank pondered that as he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. It wasn't often that he had a woman interested in him, and never one who said she _preferred _him the way he looked. In a daze, he followed her up to her apartment.

                He waited out in the living room as she disappeared into her bedroom. Shortly thereafter, he heard a thud, and a startled cry. He ran into the bedroom and saw her sitting on the floor under a large box of papers and disks.

                He lifted the box off her easily, and helped her up. She gestured to the closet she was standing in front of. "Well, I have three boxes of notes. Do you want to look over all of them, or do you want just the most recent ones?"

                "Just the most recent, and if I have difficulty making any of the connections, then I shall ask you about them," he said.

                She grinned. "Then I look forward to your call."


	2. The Virus

Chapter 2:

                Hank woke groggily the next morning. Bright sunlight streamed in his window, and he squinted at the clock. Almost ten o'clock! He almost never got up this late. He was usually up early.

                And there was all of Amanda's research waiting for him in the labs. He got dressed hurriedly, shoving his feet into his pants, then grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen on his way through. No one else was in there, and he was glad, otherwise he would have to face the others' curious questions. He made his way down the familiar halls hastily, hoping to get to the labs without encountering anyone. He slipped into the labs, closed the door, breathed a sigh of relief, then turned.

                Jubilee was sitting at her table, in front of the physical reaction chamber he had designed for her with her help, a smug smile on her face. "Well, what happened to 'early to bed'?"

                He said, "I did not get in until rather late last night. 'Early to bed' does not apply if a reduction in the necessary amount of sleep is involved."

                Jubilee giggled. "In other words, you got in late last night, so you're allowed to sleep late." She pouted. "So how come that never applied to me when I was younger?"

                "Because you were not permitted to be out that late," he said. "Even if you had been out late…and believe me, we knew when you had sneaked out…you were still required to be up on time." He took the lid off the box and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers.

                "Whoa," Jubilee's eyes grew round as she saw the tiny writing that covered the papers. "What's this stuff?"

                "Something Amanda was working on before she broke off her 'working partnership' with our dear Dr. Garrett," Hank said sarcastically. "She believes if the research were to be carried out to its logical conclusion, there might be a way to reverse the mutant condition."

                "Whoa," Jubilee said, impressed. She got up and stood behind Hank as he spread out Amanda's notes on the table and began to read. "Damn, she's thorough. I don't even keep records that detailed." Jubilee peered at the tiny, neat precise writing. "Her handwriting's also much better."

                Hank didn't even hear Jubilee, he was looking at the notes. Jubilee shrugged and went back over to her lab table as Hank picked up the first page in the folder.

                The original samples had been brought back from an obscure corner of the Brazilian rainforest, in a sample of water from some remote brackish pond. The 'plant' life was full of the virus. There was no hint as to where the virus might have originated, however.

                The virus had been duly isolated and examined. At first glance it had seemed to react like a regular virus on amoebas and bacterium; then a virologist had added it, on a whim, to a sample of animal DNA; a mouse. The mouse happened to carry the dormant animal version of the X-factor.

                The virus had reacted instantly, isolating and contaminating the cells containing the X-factor, the carrier cells. Within moments, it began reacting like a regular virus did, taking over the cells and inserting its internal material into the mouse's genes. Then the mouse's carrier cells began to produce more and more copies of themselves…copies of mutated cells. The mutated cells grew exponentially, its growth spurred on by the mysterious virus. When the reovirus came in contact with regular cells not carrying the mutant gene, it killed the cells, halting the regular cellular mitosis and wrapping viral proteins around the cell walls. In an hour, the normal cells in the mouse's DNA sample were dead, empty husks of cells, and all that was left were rapidly multiplying mutant cells. 

                Cells didn't normally act like that, and Hank had no idea what specifically made the cells do this. Something in the reovirus made the non-carrier cells die, and carrier cells to conduct mitosis on a much faster and larger scale than formerly. It was an astonishing discovery.

                That much was summarized in the first page of Amanda's recent notes, as though she'd written it for someone who was to take over the research. Hank turned the page over and took the second sheet, being careful not to disturb the order of the pages. Amanda was a very meticulous researcher.

                These next few pages were devoted to the sudden morphological changes in the rat. Hank picked up the first page.

            I injected the first rat, subject 23, with a single sample of the reovirus. Then I watched for the results. At first nothing seemed to happen; then all of a sudden there was a noticeable protrusion, just before the first rib, behind the right forelimb. The rat appeared to be in some distress; it squeaked and thrashed about inside the isolation chamber I had placed it in to avoid contaminating any other subjects or laboratory personnel. The virus seems to need to be injected or spread by contact instead of being airborne or waterborne, but there is no need to take unnecessary risks. 

Over the course of the next few hours, the protrusion became much more pronounced, eventually becoming an exact miniature copy of the forelimb. Hair did not begin to develop until almost an hour and a half following the initial injection. By then the subject seemed to be in extreme distress, and expired  a day after the introduction  of the virus.

Dissection of the subject revealed that every cell in the body of the subject had been converted to a mutated state. There was evidence of a vestigial liver, and a secondary, nonfunctional lung. The process was markedly incomplete in the adrenal areas of the subject, leading me to speculate that perhaps adrenaline slows or even stops the reaction. I will have to do much more research in order to verify this observation.

One curious change that I noticed is that the fatty layer of the subject has been radically consumed by the virus. I postulate that the transformation requires immense amounts of energy, and that energy could only be found inside the fatty layer. The subject's death was due to complete system shutdown, quite possibly due to the lack of available energy to carry out biological functions such as respiration, heartbeat, and other functions necessary to support life.

Hank sat back on his stool. What Amanda had described on the paper was shocking, to say the least. The morphological changes had proven to be fatal to the test subject because of lack of energy available. What would happen if unlimited energy were to become available to the subject during the transformation?

He turned the documents over, searching through them, until he found the notes Amanda had made on the transformation of the second rat. He read this with considerable interest.

I have introduced a nutrient feed into this subject, Amanda had written. This has also made necessary the use of a restraint system so that the subject does not cause the nutrient feed to become disconnected until such a time as it is no longer needed. Once again I have introduced by means of injection  the virus into the circulatory system of the subject.

Subject seems to be normal the first three hours. I am just about to declare this attempt unsuccessful when the tongue of the rat begins to protrude form the oral cavity of the subject, and I observe with fascination the sudden appearance of a great number of papillae on the tongue. The subject's nasal cavity suddenly swells, and the subject begins to squeal in discomfort. This continues on for nearly six hours, but the subject appears normal on the outside. At the end of twenty-four hours, the subject becomes once again docile, the tongue retracts into the oral cavity, and the subject resumes its normal behavior patterns, albeit quite hampered by its restraint system. I disconnect the nutrient feed, and release the subject from its restraints. The subject immediately runs to its food receptacle, which happens to be empty. I place into the empty dish a sample of cheese, Swiss to be exact, which is used as incentives for the subjects, but the subject, who formerly devoured the treat, seems to reject it now. The nose twitches, and then wrinkles as though in distaste. I replace the Swiss with a piece of Brie, from my own lunch, and this is accepted with great alacrity. 

The subject seems to have developed a heightened sense of smell and taste, and I believe that this is the particular mutation encoded in its carrier cells. What is surprising is that this subject was composed of eighty percent normal cells and only twenty percent carrier cells (which I determined by testing a sample of the blood cells before beginning the experiment), yet in the space of two hours the carrier cells became dominant and completed the transformation.

Hank put down the sheet of paper, thinking hard. It had only taken a day for the transformation from normal to mutant for a rat; how much longer, then, would it take for a human? What would happen if it were injected into a human? He smiled sardonically. Exactly the same thing that happened to him, except that the morphological changes would take the shape of whatever was coded into the genetic material of the subject.

He was so wrapped up in what he was thinking about that he didn't even realize someone was speaking his name until a hand tapped him on the shoulder. "Hank?"

With effort, he tore his mind from the paper he was thinking about and focused on the face before him. "…yes?…"

"Earth to Hank," Jubilee said, clearly amused. "You there?"

He smiled. "Yes, I am here, Jubilee," he said. "What do you require?"

"I 'require' you to share with me the reason for that abstract look," she said.

It was almost a relief to share the thoughts swirling in his head. Jubilee sat pensively until he was done, thinking, and said, "I guess the next logical step would be to perform this on a sample of mutant DNA, carrier DNA, and normal human DNA. I wonder what the results would be like? How long would it take, what it would do. But to experiment on a living being isn't an option."

"No. It is not an option." Hank looked wryly at the back of his hands, at the thick covering of blue fur, and sighed. "I don't want her to spend the rest of her life looking like me."

Jubilee smiled. "Ah, the truth will out! I thought as much! You went out with her last night!" She sat down on air, on an invisible stool made of suspended air molecules, and laughed. "I thought that was where you were! Give give, give. Did you have fun? Where did you two go?"

Hank adjusted his glasses on his nose with an air of unruffled dignity, and said, "We did not go out on a 'date', Jubilee. I merely requested her company when I went to obtain nourishment."

"Yeah, yeah. Hank, when a gentleman asks a lady to accompany him out to a restaurant that usually qualifies as a date. I bet if I called Amanda she'd say you two went out on a date."

He smiled. "It was not a date, Jubilee."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. It wasn't a date, it was just two friends going out and having a bite to eat." She tossed her long black hair back over her shoulder and leaned forward over her knees, hands clasped. "So where did you two go?"

"Della Notte," Hank said.

Jubilee laughed again. "And if that wasn't a date, then I don't know what is! Charles took Moira there the last time she was in town. That was definitely a date. Hank, we know you. If you were out there on your own you'd have driven through the closest fast-food drive-through, grabbed something greasy, full of calories and carbohydrates, and come home. You wouldn't have come home at two in the morning and made that giant sub that took the last of the French bread and all the deli meat. I know what kind of food they serve at Della Notte. It wouldn't have satisfied your hunger unless you ate like a pig, and I know you never do that. So admit it, it was a date."

"I will not admit to something that is not true."

"It was a date."

"It was not."

"It was so--"

"If you two are done, then perhaps we could all go upstairs and grab a bite?" came an amused voice from the door. Jubilee and Hank both whirled, to see Xavier in the doorway.

"Oh! Sorry, Charles, we were just discussing whether Hank really did go on a date last night or not."

"I was wondering where you were last night, Hank," Xavier said. "With whom did you spend your time?"

"Jubilee's friend Amanda. And it was not a date."

Jubilee stuck her tongue out at him. "Now, now," Hank said smugly. "No need to regress into childish behavior patterns," and he grinned. 

Jubilee made a face and said, "Fine. I'm going to leave you two down here, and I'm going to go up to lunch." She sprinted up the stairs, leaving them behind.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                "Guess what?" she plunked down on a stool and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table, biting into it as Remy stirred the pot of chili on top of the stove. Logan, Remy, Scott, Jean, and Ororo were the only ones in the kitchen for lunch today. Everybody else seemed to be off somewhere.

                "What?" Jean said, taking three bowls on a telekinetic 'tray' to the table, where they floated down to land on Scott's and Ororo's placemats. 

                "One minute, _chere,_" Remy said, halting Jean and Jubilee's conversation. "Jubes. Spicy or regular?"

                Jubilee sniffed the aroma in the air. "Is that your Cajun sausage chili?"

                Remy gave her a naughty look. "Is dere any ot'er kin', _p'tite_?" Jubilee giggled.

                "Regular then. The Greenwich Village butcher puts too much pepper in the sausage as it is." She accepted the bowl Jean floated her way, then Remy grabbed the crushed red pepper and added a generous pinch to the steaming pot. He and Logan liked theirs spicy.

                "So go on ahead," Jean said as the six of them took a seat around the kitchen table. There weren't enough of them to justify using the informal dining room. "'Guess what', what?"

                "Hank went on a date last night." Jubilee informed them. 

                Jean leaned forward, very interested indeed. "Really? With who? I thought he just went to the post office to mail his research paper!"

                "Please," Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Like it takes three hours to mail anything."

                "He was gone that long?" Ororo's eyes widened. "Then that was why I did not hear him come in last night. What time did he come in?"

                "Two this morning," Jubilee said. "And he went out with Amanda."

                Expressions of surprise ran around the table form the girls. The guys rolled their eyes. "Come on, Hank's our friend," Scott said. "We shouldn't be dissecting his life like this."

                "Ain't none o' our business, Jubes," Logan said.

                Remy nodded. "Hank date whoever he want to," he said. "He don' need us to embarrass him by discussin' his love life."

                Jubilee grinned. "No, he doesn't. We discuss yours enough as it is." They all broke up laughing at his uncomfortable look.

                "Anyway," Jubilee said, "He's not calling it a date, so don't refer to it as one. Hank insists that he was only 'requesting' her company while he ate. But they went to Della Notte, according to him."

                "Huh," Jean snorted. "That was a date, all right, no matter what he wants to call it." She cocked her head. "What has he been doing down there all this time?"

                Jubilee sobered. "Amanda gave him the notes on the genetic research project she was working on. Hank showed me her notes; she found this virus that triggers mutations in carriers. She's hoping if she can figure out how it works, she can reverse it so that people who are already mutants can go back to being non-mutants."

                There was an indrawn breath from everyone, and speculative looks passed from one to another around the table. Jubilee shook her head. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," she said. "Maybe when I was younger I might have wished my mutation gone, but I think I'm pretty happy being the way I am. I don't think I'd change it."

                Jean shook her head. "I like being me," she said. "Maybe when I was younger I might have wished for a solution like that, but not now."

 Ororo looked uncertain. "I do not know," she said. "I am the way I am because it was meant for me to be this way…but there are times when I would trade it all for a chance at being normal."

                Logan shook his head. "Not me. I'm happy bein' who I am; an' anyway, I been a mutant too long. I like who I am. I ain't changin' it."

                "Me neither," Remy said. "But Rogue…" They were all silent for a moment. If the technique were perfected, Rogue would do it in a heartbeat. They all knew that. So would Hank. And there were likely a lot of mutants out there who would chose to be other than they were.

                Ororo broke the silence. "There may not be a way to 'reverse engineer' a mutant. If or when the technique becomes available, we will all need to make that choice. However, now is not the time."

                "Yeah. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Chatter, and eating, resumed around the table, and conversation turned to lighter topics.


	3. The Invitation

Chapter 3: The Invitation

                Xavier smiled, amused, as the sound of Jubilee's pounding footsteps receded up the stairs. "Ah, the energy of youth," he said dryly. "If we could bottle it and sell it, what a fortune we'd make…"

                Hank smiled. It was an old joke between them. He adjusted his glasses as Xavier sobered. "You were out quite late last night, which is quite unusual for you," Xavier said. "I trust that nothing is wrong."

                "Oh, no," Hank assured him. "I was simply renewing my acquaintance with Jubilee's friend Amanda Greene." 

                Xavier smiled. "I saw the two of you dancing together at the wedding," he said. "And I spoke to her briefly later. She is quite an intelligent young woman. I am pleased that you and she found some common ground."

                "Oh, that we did," Hank said. "She is also a biogeneticist; though, for the moment, that seems to have been placed on hold due to a lack of an adequate facility in which to perform her research. Her research was the reason she stayed with her former fiancé Bruce Garrett for so long; but she eventually listened to her heart and broke up with him, even though it meant that she would have to halt her research." Hank adjusted his glasses and returned to his chair, Xavier following him into the lab. "She was conducting some quite promising research into the possible uses of this unusual reovirus discovered in the rainforest."

                Xavier put on his reading glasses and peered at the paper Hank handed him, reading it as Hank returned to his perusal of the documents Amanda had given him.

                'In order to carry my research to its next step, I must obtain a sample of mutant DNA, to observe the reaction of the virus on an already fully mutated sample. Then I need to obtain a sample of non-carrier DNA…that is to say, DNA from a subject that has no carrier gene, and therefore no possibility of developing mutations. Then I need a sample of carrier DNA, and observe the reaction.

            I would then like to obtain a test sample, from an unknown, anonymous subject, and expose it to the reovirus. The way it reacts will then be compared to the documented reactions of the virus to normal, carrier, and mutated samples. I believe that this will then become a standard test to see if the individual from whom the DNA sample came from is indeed a mutant, carrier, or human.'

            He picked up the next sheet. This wasn't as neatly written as the others; it looked like Amanda had just scribbled her thoughts down on a sheet of paper. 'There are ethical and moral considerations to think about before I release my research to the general public,' she wrote. 'Mutants are already feared and hated by most of the general population, but some mutants who have non-physical mutations (psionic or internal mutations, though they outwardly appear normal) have been able to escape public scrutiny by hiding who they are. I am not a mutant myself, so I don't understand, but I would guess that they would like to remain anonymous. If this test becomes standard, anonymity will go out the window. Politics being what they are, some damn bureaucrat somewhere will make this test mandatory for everyone, and I have no doubt that the human propensity for singling out those who are different will cause a lot of misery for those who would want to remain anonymous.

            However, the corollary to this is that, if I can discover how this reovirus codes for the mutant gene, then those who don't want to be mutants will not be compelled to be. I could re-engineer this virus to code for the normal gene, and the mutant genes will then be the ones eradicated, leaving the person free of mutations and completely normal. Children who are tested carriers can have their mutated genes removed to prevent even the possibility of developing a mutation. 

The problem is, however, that just because we can reverse a mutation, does that mean that we should? If Fate, or God, or whatever other force rules the universe has decreed that a child be born a carrier, and the number of carrier cells introduces the almost definite certainty that the child will become a mutant, then should we tamper with that? Do we have a right to say, "Fate, I don't like the gift you gave me, I'll change it thank you very much?" In other words, do we have the right to play God with the genetic code? I wouldn't have qualms if I knew for certain that the test would remain voluntary, but human nature being what it is, fear of the unknown will eventually ensure that the test will become mandatory.'

"She does have a point," Xavier said, sitting back into his hoverchair. Hank blinked, startled. He hadn't realized that Xavier was reading this sheet over his shoulder. "The test will not remain voluntary; you and I both know that, Hank. But it is odd that she would refer to mutant abilities as gifts. She obviously does not view the X-gene as a curse, as many others do."

"No. Amanda is singularly unprejudiced in that area," Hank said. "She informed me before we parted company last night that she preferred seeing me as I am now, and she could not imagine me looking normal."

Xavier smiled. "She is attracted to you," he said. "And I assume you had a good time last night, or you wouldn't have protested Jubilee's offhand designation of your time together as a date."

Hank looked about to dispute Xavier's assessment, but Charles held up a hand. "No, Hank. I have known you too long for you to try to get anything by me. You did have a good time." Hank nodded reluctantly. "Why try to deny it? Hank, you spend far too much time alone. I rarely see you out and about with the others. Too much seclusion is not good for anyone, Hank. You may not like the way you look, but it does not, and should not, bother your friends. Amanda is the first girl you have taken out in a while; I believe maybe you should repeat the experience again. And soon." Hank looked at Xavier's twinkling eyes, and smiled reluctantly. 

"I had planned on telephoning her this evening and discussing the results of her research thus far," Hank said. "Perhaps it might be easier to simply stop by and speak to her in person rather than trusting conversations to an impersonal telephone."

Xavier simply smiled.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Amanda sighed and put down her pen. She'd just finished grading her last student's paper, and her knuckles were cramped, and she was stiff. She decided to give herself a break, and wandered into her kitchen and grabbed a bottle of soda from the refrigerator.

                She was in the process of taking a sip when the phone rang. Its shrillness startled her, and she spluttered on the soda rushing into her nose as she put the bottle down on the kitchen table. She very rarely had anyone call her, and never on a Saturday; so who could it be? She wondered, fleetingly, if it might be Hank…but she dismissed that notion. He probably had more important things to do besides call her in the middle of the day. She grabbed the phone. "Hello?"

                "Hello Amanda," And there went her composure again as she heard Hank's measured, even tones. She spluttered again, and it took her a little time to regain her breath. On the other end, Hank listened to the noises with some surprise and concern. "Are you all right? Amanda? Do you require medical assistance?"

                "No, no, I'm fine," Amanda said finally, waving a hand, though it was useless since he couldn't see her. "No, I'm fine. What's wrong?"

                There was silence for a moment. ""There is nothing 'wrong', Amanda. I…wanted to say that I had a nice time last night, and I wondered if you enjoyed yourself." Poor man, he sounded so unsure about himself. Amanda shook her head, glad that he couldn't see her. Hank McCoy had brains, intelligence, gentleness, caring, and compassion…so why hadn't someone snapped him up already? He would have made some girl a wonderful husband; he was everything she'd wanted in a man, and she suspected that not a few other girls would feel the same way. It shouldn't matter to anyone what he looked like on the outside.

                She realized that she'd been quiet a few seconds too long, and she said quickly, "Oh yes, I had a lovely time. It's been a long time since I went out with anyone, and it was definitely a …pleasurable experience…" And as soon as she said it, she wished she'd chosen another adjective. Maybe 'pleasurable' wasn't the right word. A blush colored her cheeks crimson.

                Hank noticed the hesitation. "I am sorry, I did not realize this might not be a good time--"

                Amanda sighed to herself. "It's not a problem, really," she said. "I just finished grading a bunch of my students' papers, and my mind was wandering a bit. It's all right, I wasn't busy."

                Hank wasn't certain, but he plunged in. "I enjoyed your company last night immensely," he said. "I was wondering if you would care to repeat the experience with me tonight." There. He'd said it. Now for the rejection. He unconsciously held his breath.

                Amanda blinked. Would she? Hell yeah. She tried not to sound overeager as she said, "I'd love to. Where are we going?"

                Hank let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and said, "I was thinking perhaps 'Alexandra's'. It's an upscale place downtown; and perhaps we might catch a film or some form of recreational entertainment afterward. I have no particular preference; you may select the event."

                Oh, she did love the way he talked. "Let's see. I believe there's a showing of 'Phantom of the Opera' at the theater just down the street from 'Alexandra's'. Do you like musicals?"

                Hank smiled. It was funny how Amanda liked the same things he did. "Most Broadway plays tend to be uninteresting, but it so happens that 'Phantom' is one of the few musical productions that I do enjoy. Yes, I would like that. I will purchase the tickets and pick you up for the evening. Will seven o'clock allow you sufficient time to prepare?"

                "Oh, more than sufficient," Amanda said.  

                "I shall look forward to seeing you, then." And the line went dead.

                Amanda sat down to catch her breath, then began to bundle up the papers on the table with a fluttery feeling in her stomach. She didn't have a lot of formal clothing, and she was going to have to take a quick shopping trip to buy something suitable.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                The doorbell rang at exactly seven, and Amanda hastily dropped her lipstick and ran to answer it. Standing in the doorway was a massively built, handsome man, dressed with impeccable taste in a black suit. "Can I help you?" she said, eyeing him.

                "I am here to pick you up, as I promised," said Hank's cultured, gentle voice. From behind his back, he produced a bouquet of flowers and held them out.

                Amanda took them, staring blankly. "But…but…you're…" She stopped, flustered.

                Hank reached down to his wrist and did something to a watch strapped innocuously to it, and the mask over his features dropped, to reveal his familiar furry blue visage. She stared, then found her voice. "What is that?"

                "It is called an image inducer," he said. "It is in essence a miniaturized holographic projector that projects a desired image, in this case regular features onto my face to simulate--"

                "I understand," Amanda said. "It just took me by surprise. You don't need to wear that, do you?"

                Hank raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I have not offended you, have I?" he said in surprise.

                Amanda sighed, stepped aside, and waved him in before shutting the door. "Hank," she said, and stopped. She was silent as she put the flowers in a vase and ran water into it, and didn't say anything until the vase was set neatly in the center of her coffee table. Then she sighed as she ran a hand through her already neatly-done hair, disarranging her auburn curls as she tried to find the words to say what she wanted to say. "Hank, I like you. If I didn't, I wouldn't have agreed to go out with you last night." She leaned forward, placed her hand over his in his lap, and said, "I liked you when I met you at Jubilee's wedding. That hasn't changed. And it's not just the outside, I like who you are inside. I don't want you to feel as though you have to hide who you are to me or in front of me. I like the way you look."

                Hank sat stunned. "You do?" was all he could think of to say. Amanda sat beside him on the couch, raised a hand, and gently ran it through the blue hair at his temples. The touch was intensely personal, and intimate, and Hank felt acutely the nearness of the woman beside him. 

                "I do." Amanda sensed she was making him uncomfortable, and sat back a bit, twisting a curl around her finger. "Hank, I don't care what you look like. I love the way you look, I prefer seeing the real you. I don't care that your skin is blue." She turned to him. "Did you know my father was full-blooded Cherokee? Does the fact that I have 'red' skin bother you?"

                Hank drew his eyebrows together. "No, it doesn't."

                "It's the way I am. That's all there is to it. I am who I am, and I don't care what anyone else may think about what I look like. I also don't care what anyone might say about my choice of company. Words can't hurt me." She looked at Hank. "Does this make any sense?"

                "Yes." And it did. Hank was flabbergasted. No one had ever said that to him; a few of the girls he had dated when he had first been transformed into the blue furry Beast he was named for had actually been glad to find he had an image inducer.

                "Good." Amanda got up from the couch. "Hank, if you want to wear that thing tonight, it's all right by me. I just don't want you to wear it because you think I don't want to be seen with someone who has blue skin and hair." She kissed his cheek quickly, then said, "And if I don't hurry and get myself together, then we're never going to be getting out of here." She disappeared into the bathroom.

                Hank sat there, looking at the image inducer strapped around his massive wrist. Amanda had a point. His own appearance in the mirror didn't bother him much anymore; he had worn the image inducer solely on her account. He thought for a moment, then took it off and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

                Ten minutes later, Amanda came out of the bathroom, and it had been sufficient time for Hank to tranquilize his mind enough to take stock of what she was wearing. A black strapless dress clung to her upper body to the waist before flaring to a calf-length skirt made of some iridescent gossamer material, and a scarf of the same material was draped over her shoulders. She had made some attempt at pulling her hair back up to where it was when she'd opened the door, but apparently had given up and just let it hang loose and free down her back. Hank smiled. "You look lovely, Amanda," he said, and meant it.

                She smiled. "Thank you." She picked up a little black purse and took a black dress jacket from the closet by the door. Hank took the jacket from her before she had gotten the closet door closed and held it open for her to slip into. She smiled at him, a smile that made his heart rise into his throat, and slipped her arms into the jacket, then opened the door. He offered her his arm. "Shall we go?"

                She slipped her arm into his and stepped out, locking the door behind her. The man in the apartment beside hers opened his door and stared very hard indeed at Amanda and Hank as they went down the steps, but Amanda ignored him.


	4. The Date

Chapter 4: The Date

                Alexandra's was an elegant little restaurant tucked away in the middle of the city between two cellular service shops. Hank had been there once before, on a double date with Remy and Rogue, and had found the atmosphere soothing, the restaurant pretty, and the food delightful. Amanda looked right at home as she threaded her way around the tables, and Hank noticed more than a few heads turning to look at the slim black-clad nymph he was escorting. It was quite a change; he was used to envying the other single guys at the mansion the pretty girls they went with, especially Remy, though he'd never admit it to any of them. It was rather pleasing, he thought, to have a girl on his arm that others envied him for. 

                They found seats, and the hostess gave them menus. Amanda looked at it for a moment, then said quietly to him, "I have a confession to make."

                "What?" he tensed.

                "I have never been here before, and I have no idea what is good." She said. "I assume you've been here before?"

                "Indeed," he said gravely as he relaxed.

                She looked at him beseechingly. "Will you order for me? Please?"

                He took her menu from her and smiled as he laid a hand comfortingly over hers. "Of course," he said. She smiled, relieved, and he consulted the menu for a few more minutes before waving the waiter over.

                They started with an appetizer of cocktail shrimp, and Hank discovered that both he and Amanda enjoyed spicy foods when he saw her adding more horseradish to the cocktail sauce. He grinned, and let her have her way with the sauce as he mentally changed the selection he made for her. The shrimp was followed by a Caesar salad, his with a lemon basil dressing, hers with the house Italian. Then the waiter brought their main entrees. He had ordered prime rib with pesto linguini, and had chosen for her the herb-roasted chicken and fettuccini in a creamy alfredo sauce. At his request, they had added slightly more pepper to the chicken, and he was rewarded by her surprised, pleased look when she took the first bite of her chicken. She ordered herself a slice of cheesecake for dessert, and he had their strawberry shortcake. 

                She sat back, finally, and grinned. "Wow," she said. "I've never had a meal like that. Beats my cooking all hollow. I think I'm about to burst my dress."

                Hank looked at her dress, startled, and she laughed. "I was joking," she said. "But the food was delicious. I haven't eaten so much in a while." She wiped her mouth with a napkin, and Hank called for the check. He left a generous tip for the waiter and they made their way out into the street.

                He started to head for the car, but she stopped. "The theater's only a block away," she said. "Can we walk?"

                Again he was surprised. It was what he would have done, were he alone, but he hadn't thought that she would enjoy it. He smiled at her and fell into step beside her as they walked up the sidewalk toward the theater.

                She looked up at the sky, at the few stars that littered the velvety blackness, and said, "I always swore to myself that I'd never live in the city, and yet here I am."

                Hank looked up, then at the woman walking beside him. "Why would you prefer not to live in the city?" he asked her. "Apart from the problem of pollution and never-ending sound."

                "Stars," she said wistfully, stopping and pointing upwards. "I grew up in West Virginia, riding horses from my parents' breeding stables. I used to love going for long walks at dusk, so I could watch the sun go down and see the stars come out. But I can't do that here in the city." She stopped, pointed upward. "See that bright one, hanging right over top of us? That's Rigel. The constellation it's in is Orion; if it were just a bit darker we might be able to see the three stars that make up Orion's Belt."           

Hank looked up at the sparkling point of light hanging so far above him. "The Egyptians believed this constellation was the resting place of Osiris," he said quietly, studying the constellation.

"Yes," Amanda said, pleased. "In Greece Orion was the son of Neptune, the Sea God. He fell in love with Diana, who placed him there in the sky far away from the constellation of the scorpion that killed him." She looked pleased. "I'm surprised you knew the Egyptian legend."

                "I read." Hank looked back down at her as they continued walking, and she laughed as she slipped her hand into his. Her palm was so small and soft in his, and he felt a thrill of pleasure at the spontaneous, unasked-for touch. His mind was wandering toward other, less-appropriate thoughts, and he tried desperately to get back on track. "If you had such an obvious interest in astronomy, why did you not pursue that career path instead of biogenetics?" he asked her.

                Amanda sighed, and leaned into his arm. "My sister was a mutant," she said. "When she reached her fourteenth birthday her skin suddenly became so excessively thin that the lightest touch bruised it. She could barely tolerate clothes. And it just got worse from there; you could see the blood literally running through her veins, and all her other bodily functions going on even through her skin. One day she was in the kitchen doing dishes when a plate dropped on the floor and smashed. While she was trying to clean it up she got cut with a piece. Her skin was so thin that they couldn't stop the bleeding. She died." Amanda took a deep breath. Her eyes were damp. 

"Mom and Dad were really broken up about it. Dad's a mutaphobe; he hates mutants. It was something of a shock to him when he found out his oldest child was one. Mom doesn't like mutants either; she got stuck in the middle between hers and Dad's anti-mutant hysteria and the need to try to support Katherine while she tried to deal with what was happening to her." Amanda sighed and wiped her eyes. "It destroyed their marriage. Dad stayed back on the farm, and Mom moved here to get a job and start over. She lives just outside the city now. Mom and I drive back for holidays. Anyway, I became a geneticist because I wanted to find a way to figure out how to test for and predict mutated gene carriers. If I can find a test maybe I can help some other baby sister from having to watch her older sibling die."

                Hank wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they stopped walking. "I'm sorry," he said to the russet curls resting against his arm. Amanda looked up at him, then hugged him as tightly as she could, considering she couldn't even get her arms all the way around him.

                "It's all right," she said finally. "Katherine was the reason I started becoming interested in biogenetics. I was trying to find something that would isolate and identify the X-gene, and the reovirus was the only answer." They resumed walking. "Did you get a chance to read the notes?"

                "I did," Hank said. "It was very interesting. This reovirus has characteristics both like and unlike any virus I have ever seen before." He stopped. "Amanda, you said the samples would be destroyed if you removed them from your freezer. But viruses have a higher tolerance for temperature differentials than many other forms of life on the planet. Why did you not wish to share the samples with me?"

                She looked down, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she said. "But Bruce stole so much of my research, I guess I'm sort of a little paranoid. I don't want that to happen to me again."

                "I understand," Hank said as they stopped at the ticket window and purchased two tickets. "I am still interested in seeing the samples, however. Let me see what I can do; I may be able to arrange a visit for you to where I work." It was a stretch; Hank knew Xavier would probably not like the idea of his bringing an outsider like Amanda into the mansion. There was too much of a chance that she might stumble onto their secret, though Hank was pretty sure that Amanda wouldn't speak of what she saw. He sighed. "Let's go find our seats," he told her.

                The curtain rose shortly thereafter, and Hank lost himself in the grandiose, swelling 'Phantom Overture'. As the play progressed, he sat back into his seat and let the familiar music wash over him. Amanda, he noticed with surprise, was doing the same. And when the curtain came down, he found her with her eyes damp. He smiled.

                "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I get so wrapped up in these things. Bruce hates it when I get emotional; that's why he never took me anywhere."

                Hank grinned at her. "It is quite a moving piece," he said.

                Amanda wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, and grimaced when it came away streaked with her makeup. "Will you excuse me?" she said as they reached the lobby of the theater. "I need to go wash this makeup off my face."

                Hank obligingly stopped, and she ducked into the ladies' room. The lobby was full of people, and it was stuffy. He stepped out of the door, leaning against the glass outside where Amanda could see him when she came out and looked up. A streetlamp had gone out directly across from the theater, and he found that that helped him, as he squinted up into the night sky to see the three bright stars that made up Orion's belt.

                "Hey, mutie," came a harsh voice, and he flicked his eyes downward. Five scruffily dressed youths, maybe in their mid to late teens, were sitting under the dysfunctional lamp, smoking. The first by spoke again. "Hey, freak," he said. "Whatcha hangin' around tryin' to look like one of them for?" He gestured to the other well-dressed patrons of the theater with a wave of his cigarette. "You ain't never gonna be like them. Go hang out with your own kind, freak."

                Amanda chose just that moment to come out of the theater, her smeared makeup fixed. Hank turned to her, pointedly ignoring the five rude youths on the other side of the street, and took her arm. They started to walk back toward the restaurant where they'd left the car.

                Amanda frowned at the boys. "What was that all about?" she said. Hank shook his head and kept on walking.

                The five guys sped up and walked just a few steps behind them. "Hey, lady," said the one who'd spoken. "You can do better than that, you know."

                Amanda's hand tightened on Hank's arm as he made a move to confront the hecklers. "Forget it, Hank. They're not worth the attention. Ignore them." She ignored them too, walking off down the street. Hank walked beside her.

                The five boys followed them. "Look at him," they jeered. "Big, blue, and ugly. What a freak. Look at them. Hey, lady," one of them hollered. "Is he hung the way he's built?"

                Amanda flushed an angry pink, but kept walking. The guy who had spoken sped up, followed by his friends, and got in front of her. "Ditch the freak," he said to her. "Come on. Let me show you a real man."

                "I have one, thank you," Amanda said shortly. "If all you can do is belittle someone for the way he looks, without being mature enough to look beneath the skin, then you're no man. You're an idiotic child." She took Hank's arm, started to steer him around the knot of boys.

                The one who had spoken turned an angry red, and watched dumbfounded as his friends laughed at him. In anger, he stooped, picked up a chunk of broken brick from the sidewalk, and hurled it at them.

                Amanda cried out and stumbled into Hank's arm as the piece of brick connected with her head. She put her hand up to her temple, and it came away slick with blood. Hank gasped and took a handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it to her temple to stop the bleeding. Amanda took it from him, holding it to her head, and grabbed his arm with one hand. "No, Hank," she said. "Don't sink to their level. Come on. Let's go home."

                Then a second piece of building debris followed, and Hank gasped as it struck his arm. Then a rock sailed past him, and he heard Amanda cry out again as it thudded against her ribs. He lost his temper.

                He rushed at their tormentors. The boys, seeing Hank's angry, snarling visage and considerable mass bearing down on them, yelled and scattered. He almost pursued them, but Amanda's soft sobs behind him drew him back to her side. He stared in distress at the blood smeared on her hands and the side of her face, and said, "Let's get you home."

                He stopped in at the drugstore on the way to purchase bandages and antiseptic, and then got Amanda home. She unlocked the door and ushered him inside, and then he insisted that she lie down on her couch as he dampened a towel and wiped the blood off her hands and face. She leaned her head back against the arm so he could look at the cut under the bright table lamp beside the couch. "How does it look?" she said quietly.

                "The wound is superficial," Hank said, parting the strands of her hair to look at the cut, "It should heal with no trouble. Are you experiencing any dizziness, or discomfort?"

                "No," Amanda said, though she winced a little as he carefully squeezed a line of antiseptic ointment on the cut. He spread it around with careful, gentle fingers, and then considered how he was going to wrap a bandage around her head.

                "Don't worry about the bandage," Amanda said quietly, turning to look at him. "I'm sure it will be…all right…" Her words trailed off. His face was only inches from hers, and she could smell the warm, subtle scent of his cologne. She found her gaze straying to his lips, and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Deed followed thought.

                Hank almost pulled back in surprise when her lips found his, but her lips were soft, inviting, and yielded so sweetly to his when he got up the courage to kiss back that he didn't want to break the contact. Her arms crept around his neck, and she kissed him back, passionately, and his last thought was that Charles was right, he was by himself much too often.

                Much later, they both lay on the pile of blankets Amanda had spread out on her living room floor, because her bed had obviously not been built to handle the excessive weight he put on it. "I am sorry about the bed," he said to the warm body spooned up against his front.

                Amanda giggled sleepily. "'S okay,"she said. "I needed to get another one anyway. The mattress was a bit lumpy." She rolled over and looked at him. In the moonlight, there was no color in his fur, only white, black, and shades of gray. Her fingers traced the outline of his chest muscles, played with the short, coarse fur, and caressed the smooth skin under the fur gently. She giggled suddenly.

                "What?" Hank said, sitting up. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back down beside her. 

                "Don't go," she said. "Stay with me. Are your friends going to miss you, back at your place?"

                "Not likely," Hank said dryly. "What were you laughing at?"

                She giggled again. "I was thinking about what that boy said," she grinned. "And I have to say, you're definitely 'hung like you're built'."

                Hank stared at her in openmouthed shock, and she laughed again. Oh, he liked that sound more and more every time he heard it. "Don't worry, that's a good thing."

                "Really." His eyes narrowed, though his voice was filled with amusement. He lowered himself carefully atop her, adjusting his position so that his weight would press his lower body against hers while not crushing her. "Shall I attempt to change that assessment?"

                She giggled. "You can try."

                They didn't get up off the floor until sunlight streamed in through the large window in her living room. Amanda stretched luxuriously in the nest of blankets as he rolled over and sat up. "I'd offer you a shower, but I don't think you'd fit in the tiny shower stalls they put in these apartments," she said, getting up herself and strolling, casually nude, into her kitchen to set the coffeemaker. Hank paused in the act of pulling on his pants to admire her body from the back. Though he'd always refrained from joining in the sexist chatter the men at the mansion indulged in occasionally, he had privately always considered himself a 'leg man'. Amanda had wonderful legs, he noticed, looking at them for the first time unencumbered by clothing, shadows, or blankets. Though he supposed even if she didn't have those long, tanned, smooth legs, he'd still be in love with her. She was a wonderful conversationist, a wonderful date, and definitely a wonderful bed partner.

                Amanda turned to him, asking, "Cream and sugar?" And he didn't even hear her because he was staring at her front. He instantly switched his assessment of his own preferences; he wasn't a 'leg man', he was a 'chest man', as long as that chest was Amanda's. She didn't have the spectacular breasts some of the other women at the mansion had (notably Betsy and Jean) but hers were decent-sized and perfect for her average size and slim build. Not even the dark bruise under her ribs, a souvenir from the second brick that had struck her, could mar the beauty of her body.

She grinned at his look, put the mug of coffee down on the kitchen table, and swayed her hips seductively as she walked over to him. All thought fled his head as they tumbled back down into the nest of blankets again.


	5. The Attack

Chapter 5: The Attack

                "_Hank!_"

                Jean's shocked exclamation (both vocal and telepathic) brought half the rest of the mansion's residents flocking to the front door. Ororo ran to him, anxiously inspecting the bloodstains on his now-wrinkled white dress shirt. "Hank, what has happened?"

                Hank looked down at the bloodstains on his shirt. "It is nothing; it is not my blood. It is Amanda's," he said.

                "Amanda's?" Jubilee ran into the front hall. "What happened to her?"

                "We were accosted outside the Rialto Theater last night after the ten o'clock showing of 'Phantom of the Opera' by five street youths," Hank said, resigned. He had been hoping to slip up to his room with a minimum of fuss, but Jean's telepathic exclamation had nullified that option. "They decided to express their displeasure at Amanda's choice of company by hurling concrete missiles at both of us. She was struck by a brick; I took her home."

                Jubilee gasped. "Is she all right?"

                "The wound was superficial," Hank said. "A simple cleaning and an application of antiseptic ointment was sufficient to relieve her discomfort."

                "I'm going to go call her!" Jubilee turned and dashed up the stairs.

                Hank shrugged out of his suit jacket and began to unbutton his shirt as he climbed the stairs to his own room, shaking his head. There were disadvantages to living in a mansion with other people, and one of those disadvantages was the fact that everybody knew everyone elses' business. He would have preferred to keep his relationship with Amanda private, but it was next to impossible to keep anything secret in a house with a telepath. And this particular house had four.

                He opened his room door, walked inside, shut the door…and saw who was waiting inside for him. He sighed and pulled his shirt off. "I assume you are going to admonish me on the disruption of order in your house," he said to the visitor.

                "Not at all," Charles Xavier said amiably, moving his personal transport out of the corner of the room where it had been while he examined Hank's wall hanging of the Periodic Table. "Is Amanda all right? I assume she is, or you would have remained with her."

                "She seemed all right last night," Hank said as he pulled a fresh T-shirt from his drawer and pulled it over his head, "But I was intending to stop here and refresh myself before returning to her apartment."

                "Did you spend the night with her?"

                Hank said quietly, "Yes."

                Xavier smiled to himself, though Hank couldn't see it. "I trust you took appropriate…measures…"

                Hank froze. "I did not consider the possible ramifications," he admitted. "However, as she was the one who initiated it, I would think that she has invested in some form of personal protection."

                Xavier wanted to laugh. It had been a long time since Hank had engaged in a physical relationship with anyone, and it had apparently been long enough for him to forget some of the fringe concerns.

                He sensed Hank's increasing discomfort with the conversation and steered the discussion down a safer avenue. "While you were there, did you have a chance to ask her about her virus samples?"

                "Amanda mentioned that her work had been pirated by her former fiancé and she was therefore reluctant to trust anyone else with the samples of the reovirus currently in her possession." Hank took a deep breath, preparing to ask Xavier the question that had been bugging him last night.

                Xavier sensed Hank's hesitation and guessed the cause. "Why not bring her and her samples here? I am fairly sure that the laboratory downstairs has whatever she requires to carry out her research."

                Hank spun. "You would not mind?"

                Xavier shook his head. "As long as you take the necessary precautions and remove all the Shi'ar technology from anywhere that she might see it, then I see no reason why she shouldn't come here to work. Her research has a great deal of potential for both humans and mutants alike, and it would be a shame if she couldn't carry it out to its logical conclusion for lack of facilities."

                Hank nodded. "Thank you, Charles. I was thinking somewhat along the same lines, but was uncertain how to approach you on this point."

                There was a knock on the door, and Hank said, "Come in."

                Jubilee opened the door and poked her head in. "Hank, I tried to call Amanda, and there's no answer. Do you think she might be teaching a weekend class at the college?"

                Hank checked his watch. "She did not mention such to me, but she did have an errand to run, so she may be out. I shall wait a short while before venturing out to her apartment."

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Amanda closed her door and sagged down on the floor behind it. Oh, it had been such a long while since she had been in love with someone. She felt giddy, like a teenager in love, and giggled as she got up and went to her room.

                Her bed lay in pieces on the floor. Upon closer inspection, it was only the frame that had suffered damage. It had collapsed under Hank's weight. The mattress and boxspring were fine.

                She started to pull the pieces of the frame out from under the bed. They were fine as well. The collapse had occurred from all of Hank's weight coming down on the exact point that the arms of the frame were bolted together. The bolt had broken.

                She thought she might be able to fix it by simply replacing the bolt, but then she stopped to think. She fully intended to have Hank over again, for the night, and fairly soon. Certainly before she was going to be able to afford to buy a new bed. If the frame failed once, it would likely fail again. It made more sense to just put the mattress on the floor.

                It took the better part of an hour to pull all the pieces of the heavy metal frame out from under the bed, and she was tired when she finally got all of it heaped in the middle of the living room floor. She stopped for a drink of water, and was contemplating her next move when there came a knock on her door. 

                Her eyes lit up. Hank had said he would be coming back. She hadn't expected him back quite so soon, but if he was here then he could help her carry the metal beams down the two flights of stairs to the dumpster outside. She ran to answer the door.

                A man was standing outside the door to her apartment, accompanied by three others. "Can I help you?" she asked politely, puzzled. She didn't recognize them.

                The man reached out and gave the door a hard shove against her shoulder. She stumbled backward, and he and his friends pushed their way in. Two of them grabbed Amanda and dragged her backward as the other two closed her apartment door. Amanda struggled against them, ineffectually, and cried out, "Get out! You're trespassing! I'm going to call the police!"

                The first man looked her over, up and down, appraisingly. "You attended a ten o'clock showing at the Rialto last night? With an escort?"

                Amanda drew herself up to her full height. "And if I did, I really don't see what business of it is yours."

                The man slapped her, hard. Amanda staggered under the force of the blow, her eyes watering in pain. "What did you do that for?" she exclaimed.

                "Your mutie boyfriend attacked my sons," he hissed at her. "They followed you here, they saw which apartment was yours, and told me."

                Amanda narrowed her eyes. "Did your son inform you that he attacked me first?" she said hotly. "He threw a brick at me! Hank was just defending me!"

                "Oh, the freak has a name," the man said mockingly. He leaned in, so close she could smell the onions on his breath. "That freak's kind ain't got no right to go attacking nobody," he snapped. "And you freak lovers ought to stay away from decent folk like me and my boys."

                Amanda stared at him incredulously. "We're all human," she said evenly. "Just because he doesn't look the same as you do doesn't give you the right to persecute him. Or me, for my choice of loving him."

                "You love him?" A muscle worked furiously in his jaw for a moment. "How can you love a freak like that?"

                "Hank is a kind, caring, loving, compassionate man," she said firmly. "I am proud to know him, and I love him."

                "You love him? Or his cock?" the man said crudely.

                Amanda snorted. "Not everything in life revolves around sex," she said. "I love him for what he is, not for what he's like in bed."

                "And I bet he said he loves you," the man said. "I wonder if he loves you for you, or if he just loves having a pretty girl on his arm." 

                "My looks have nothing to do with it," Amanda said.

                He raised an eyebrow. "Really? Let's test that theory, shall we?"

                His fist impacted with Amanda's cheekbone with such force that his two friends lost their grip on her and she fell backward against the wall. He stepped up closer to her, tangled his fingers in her long hair and shoved her head into the wall. Dazed from the blow, she sagged down the wall and knelt there for a moment before trying to crawl away from them.

                One of the other guys grabbed her ankle, preventing her from crawling away as the first man dealt three swift kicks to her ribs. Amanda cried out in pain, curling up to try to protect her stomach. A third man grabbed her wrists, and between the two of them they stretched her out. The third man grabbed a leg of her bed frame and set about smashing everything he could reach with it.

                The first man reached over and grabbed another piece of the bed frame lying in the pile on the floor. He hefted it in his fist, swung it a few times like a club, then grabbed it in both hands and brought it crashing down into her stomach. Amanda couldn't even scream this time, as the makeshift club smashed into her diaphragm and drove the air out of her lungs. He didn't give her time to regain it; his blows descended on her stomach, fast and hard, and she writhed in pain. 

                He rained blows down on her body, leaving great bruises and welts on her ribs, legs, and arms. She passed out briefly when he brought the metal club down on her shoulder, the force of the blow dislocating her arm, but he stopped his beating, slapped her bruised face repeatedly until she regained consciousness, and continued.

                She started to vomit from the agony in her body; but being held as she was on her back, she couldn't get her mouth and throat clear, and she started to panic as she fought for air. Bile filled her throat and nasal cavities as she tried to scream, but she couldn't clear an airway, and she stopped thrashing as her body concentrated on getting the necessary air into her lungs. The man holding her arms dropped them as bloody vomit splashed from her mouth and smeared his shoe, and the other man dropped her legs. Amanda rolled over, her entire body screaming in agony, and threw up miserably into her carpet.

                The first man didn't pause. He rained blows down on her back, buttocks, and shoulders, and Amanda finally got enough air into her lungs to scream as he smashed his club into her kidneys. The scream echoed in the apartment, and seconds later, the phone rang. The four men froze. The phone rang again.

                The guy who had held her arms grabbed the first man's arm. "Come on, Mike," he snapped anxiously. "Somebody musta heard her and is calling to see what's wrong. Come on, let's go." It took a few more tugs, but Mike finally acquiesced to his friend's demand, and dropped the beam. Amanda barely noticed when they left; she was in too much pain.

                She roused from her agonized stupor when she heard her answering machine pick up. Her own voice echoed cheerfully through the devastated apartment "I'm not home right now, but if you leave a message, I'll call you back when I get in." _Beep._

                "Hey, Amanda!" came a cheerful voice from the machine. " It's Jubilee. Hank just got home and told us about what happened last night. I know he said you were all right, but I wanted to hear from you. Pick up, huh?"

                Amanda dug her bloody fingers into the carpet and tried to drag herself across the carpet to where the phone sat on a low table beside the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. Agony exploded through her body and she wept in pain. She wanted to just curl up on the floor and allow unconscious to claim her, to take her away from the raw well of pain that was her body, but she couldn't afford to give into that urge if she wanted to live. Some distant part of her mind was running a catalogue of her injuries; bruised kidneys, broken ribs, a punctured lung, fractured hip and thigh, dislocated arm, assorted bruises, welts, and from the looks of what she'd thrown up, internal bleeding and a concussion…but she ignored it, trying to concentrate only on getting to that phone. Inch by painful inch, she pulled herself across the floor, using one arm and her legs to propel herself. She wanted desperately to get there before Jubilee hung up.

                Jubilee's voice paused for a moment, then she said, "I guess you're not there. Call me when you get in, or I'll call you later, okay? Bye!"

                "No!" Amanda cried as the machine clicked off. "No, please, God, no," and unable to stay conscious any longer, she sank into darkness.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Hank dusted his hands off as he looked around his lab. Every piece of Shi'ar technology was moved out of the room, even Jubilee's isolated reaction chamber. Jubilee was moaning about it. "So how long am I going to have to keep my chamber in my room?" she grumped.

                "I do not know," he said. "I do not know if Amanda will consent to continuing her research here."

                "Oh, come on, Hank," Jubilee stamped her foot impatiently. "She stayed with Bruce for several years just so she could have access to his labs to continue her research. You honestly think she's going to turn down the chance to work here?" she spread her arms wide to indicate the lab. "Especially if you're going to be working with her? Your presence will just be icing on the cake for her."

                Hank's cheeks turned almost purple as he blushed. "Jubilee," he began, but she cut him off. 

                "Did you think we didn't know? Hank, you've never spent the night away from the mansion since most of us can remember. And Logan smelled a woman's scent on you the minute you came in. You know how keen his sense of smell is. And if that didn't clue us in, we'd have to be blind not to see the idiotic grin all over your face since you came in. You got laid last night."

                He was torn between amusement that he was that predictable, embarrassment that he'd been that obvious, and indignation that Jubilee would use such a crude term to describe what had happened between himself and Amanda. Jubilee's eyes twinkled as she grinned at him, and he sighed as he surrendered. "Yes, Amanda and I shared physical intimacy last night."

                Jubilee laughed. "You and Amanda. I never would have guessed. So now she's coming here to work with you." She leaned over and kissed his cheek quickly. "I hope it works out; you're both too lonely and wrapped up in your work. It'll do both of you good to have each other." She turned and left the lab, Hank staring bemused at her retreating back.

                He checked the clock as he got into his car. He hoped Amanda was back by now…but she'd given him a copy of her apartment key, anyway, and if he had to he could wait for her inside. 

                He got out of the car and walked up the steps to her apartment, where he lifted his hand to knock before he looked down and saw the footprint on the clean gray floor of the hallway. It had belonged to a foot whose owner had walked through some foreign material and left reddish-brown marks on the floor. He could also detect smears as the shoe had slipped on the linoleum. He suddenly sniffed; there was the distinct metallic scent of blood in the air.

                His eyes traveled upward, from the smear on the floor to another smear of the same color and composition on the doorknob. As he lifted his hand and knocked, the impact of his knuckle moved the door back a few centimeters.

                The hair rose on the back of his neck. Amanda didn't seem like the type to carelessly leave the door unlocked. He placed his hand against the door and slowly pushed it open, his muscles tense in the expectation of trouble. 


	6. The Secret

Chapter 6: The Secret

                He stared in shock at the shambles in the living room. Most glaring, and what caught his eye immediately, was the hole in the plaster of the wall directly in front of him. He stepped into the entryway of the apartment, took two steps forward, and touched the hole in the wall, his fingers tracing the smear of blood trailing down the wall to the floor. His eyes followed the trail to the huge stain on the carpet, and then followed the smears away from the stain until he saw Amanda.

                He didn't hear the sound of grief, anguish, panic and desperation he uttered as he crossed the few steps to her side. She was lying facedown, still dressed in the lavender satin pajamas he had seen her put on before he had left just a few hours earlier. There were red and brown stains all over the satin now; and as he turned her over and he saw the pallor of her face under the bruises and blood, his heart nearly stopped beating. "Amanda," he breathed, a ragged sound of anguish, as he slid an arm under her neck and back and scooped her upper body up into his arms. "Amanda, Amanda, Amanda," he cried, rocking her in his arms, unaware of the tears that soaked into her hair from his eyes. "Amanda…" he froze. There was a gash on her cheek that was still bleeding; the blood was streaking his hands and shirt, only to be replaced by fresh blood.

                Dead people didn't bleed.

                He reached for her wrist, frantically, but couldn't find a pulse. He reached up, higher, feeling for the pulse point in her neck, and drew a great, shaking sob of relief. She was still alive!

                He hesitated only for a moment. She was badly injured and she was dying; of that he had no doubt. The medical technology at the city hospital, while good, couldn't save her. If he got her back to the mansion, she'd have a better chance of surviving with the Shi'ar technology available in his med labs. He scooped her up in his arms as he shouldered his way out of the self-closing door and ran for the van he drove.

                He put her up in the front passenger seat, being careful not to jar her any more than he had to and exacerbate her internal injuries. She was completely out, almost comatose, and he couldn't begin to imagine how she must have been feeling before she passed out. He didn't allow himself to speculate on what happened to her; he simply focused on the road, driving as fast as possible, swerving around potholes and rough spots in the road to keep from jouncing his injured lover.

                As luck would have it, Scott was just driving up the front drive to pick Jean up from where she waited on the front steps. She must have sensed his panic and agitation, because she dropped her purse and ran toward the van as it came to a stop at the door, brakes squealing. Scott got out, ignoring the running engine and the open door, frantically yanking the van's passenger door open to unbuckle the seatbelt around Amanda's body. Jean lifted her out of the seat telekinetically and gently straightened her out on a cushion of air, and then ran after Hank into the mansion. Hank vaguely 'heard' Jean speaking telepathically to Xavier as they ran down the halls to the elevator that was designed to take injured patients down to the medlab, but concentrated on emptying himself of all emotion as he steeled himself for the marathon surgery he knew he had to bring himself to perform.

                He had a naturally sensitive nature. Being a doctor, however, called for a certain distance from the patients so that he could do what was necessary to save lives. He'd lost count of how many times he'd had to distance himself from his friends' pain in order to help him. He'd had to steel himself against Ororo's gasps of pain as he stitched her leg up the last time they'd tangled with Magneto; had to bite his lip as Jean fought tears as he set the arm she had broken when a Sentinel had crumbled a wall on top of her. He cared about them; they were his friends, and he loved them. 

He loved them enough to do what he had to do, to hurt them in order to heal them. As Jean laid Amanda out on one of the biobeds, a special piece of Shi'ar equipment that could keep track of a patient's temperature and vitals without wires or electrodes, he forced himself to take that mental step back. He had to, to save Amanda's life. He was quite thankful that she was unconscious; she had to be suffering acutely, and though he cried inside to know how much more he would have to hurt her before he had pieced her shattered body together, he was glad he wouldn't have to hear her scream with that pain. He mechanically scrubbed down, held still as Jean put a plastic surgical gown on over his clothes, and bent grimly to his task.

Jean had to fight her own tears as she felt the anguish Hank was forcing deep inside himself. She concentrated on handing him the instruments he required, and refused to allow herself to wonder what had happened to Amanda. If she started to think about that she would get angry. She was linked to Xavier telepathically, keeping him apprised of what was happening as Charles made his way downstairs from his second floor study to the third sublevel of the basement, where the medlabs were. She couldn't keep her shields up while being linked, and if she got angry she might project, and disturb Hank as he tried to save Amanda's life. The young woman's life depended on Hank; if he slipped, or faltered, she could die.

Xavier, Betsy, Warren, Jubilee, and Logan soon joined Scott in the observation room adjoining the operating room. "Jean says Amanda's pretty bad," he told them, more to allay his own nervousness than anything else; Scott was 'listening' in on Jean's mind through the permanent husband-and-wife bond they shared, and Logan, Warren, Jubilee, and Betsy were 'eavesdropping' through the girls' telepathy. "She has a fractured cheekbone and one dislocated arm. The other upper arm bone is fractured, though not severely. Her collarbone is fractured, as are three ribs. Two ribs are broken, her right hip and upper thigh is fractured, one ankle sprained." Xavier fell silent, horrified at the extent of the injuries Amanda had suffered, and then went on in a strangled, choked voice, "She has a mild concussion, a punctured lung, badly bruised diaphragm and bleeding stomach, bruised and scrambled intestines, kidneys bruised so badly one is barely functioning, and numerous lacerations, bruises, and welts. Jean says Hank found her in a completely destroyed apartment. There was blood everywhere. And she's in terrible pain." Xavier took a deep breath, then burst out with the question that was on all of their minds. _"What the hell happened to her?!"_

*                                                              *                                                              *

                "From the amount and types of physiological damage she sustained, I would venture to guess that she was beaten badly." Hank's voice and hands trembled in weariness as he took the cup of hot tea Ororo handed him. He took a sip, and then a full mouthful, ignoring the pain as it scalded his mouth. Maybe he would stop tasting the bitter ashes of anguish as he had fought to save his beloved's life. He had succeeded; Amanda was hanging on, the internal bleeding stopped, her broken bones set, her limbs bandaged so they were immobile, and a restraining strap across her chest so that if she woke unexpectedly she wouldn't start writhing in pain and fall off the bed. 

He had set up an IV of painkiller in her arm to ease her agony, but he didn't want to overdose her, and had set the dosage a little lower than her height and weight required. When she awoke he would adjust the strength of the medication based on the amount of pain she was experiencing. "She was not sexually assaulted, thank God." He wrapped his hands around the mug, seeking comfort in its warmth. He looked up. "Charles, I am sorry; I thought of nothing but to bring her here as fast as possible; I believed that had I called an ambulance and had her taken to a regular hospital, she would not now be alive."

Xavier put a hand on his shoulder. "You did the right thing, Hank; I have nothing to say. I saw the extent of her injuries; the city hospital could not have saved her life. Her only chance was here. Have you any idea what caused her injuries?"

Hank stared into the cup. "Last night, when Amanda and I attempted to make love on her bed, it collapsed. When I entered her apartment I believe I remember seeing a pile of metal pieces on the floor that must have been her bed frame. One was extremely bloody. I believe someone may have knocked on the door, taken her by surprise when she opened it, and forced his way in and commenced assaulting her." His voice was barely above a whisper. "Amanda would have fought. She wouldn't have just lain down for this. Therefore the person who forced his entry into her apartment must have had a friend with him, or possibly two, to hold her down while they beat her. That implies that they were there specifically to do what they did; that it was premeditated. Who could hate her so much they would want to beat her to death? And if they know they did not succeed, will they return to try again?"

"When she wakes she can answer all our questions," Ororo said firmly. "Until she does we can do nothing but speculate, which will get us nowhere. Hank, you are exhausted; you have been in the operating room for almost six hours." He looked vaguely surprised; he hadn't realized how long it had been. "Come upstairs and eat. You have to be starving. Remy and Rogue made a beef roast, done rare the way you prefer it." She took his arm and tried to pull him out of his chair.

He shook his head, remaining stubbornly seated where he was, in the observation room overlooking Amanda's bed. He couldn't eat; he was too nervous and tired to eat. "Thank you, Ororo," he said, "But I am not hungry. Please, go ahead upstairs and refresh yourself. I shall remain here." And nothing anyone could say would make him change his mind.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Ororo wandered down to the medlabs later that night, holding a tray with a plate on it. She was intending to make sure Hank ate at least part of the meal that had been prepared. She rounded the corner, and stopped.

                Hank was slumped over in his chair by Amanda's bed, his head resting on the pillow beside hers, their faces only inches apart. His eyes were closed, and he was asleep, lips slightly parted, shadows of exhaustion making dark blue pools under his eyes. Ororo quietly placed her tray on a table by the door and approached the bed. "Hank," she whispered, tapping his shoulder gently, "Come on. You will get stiff if you sit in that position too long." She slid an arm under his and pulled him upright. "Go lie down," she told him gently. "I will stay with Amanda."

                "No…" he mumbled, still half asleep. "I must stay…"

                She blew out her breath in a gentle sigh of exasperation. "Hank, you will be of little use to her if you collapse from exhaustion. Come. Lie down on the bed beside her; that way you can get the rest you need without having to leave the medlabs."

                He was too sleepy to protest, and she soon had him installed on the bed beside Amanda. She pulled the foil cover over the plate and was putting the untouched meal into Hank's lab refrigerator when she heard a low moan. She swung around, and saw Amanda stirring on the bed.

                Amanda moaned as consciousness returned. Her body was one massive ball of pain, slightly dulled by medication but not completely gone. She kept her eyes closed while she assessed the pain in her body and the sounds from around her. There was the steady hum of machinery, and a soft beeping that sounded much like a heart monitor. She carefully opened her eyes.

                There was a tall, silver-haired woman standing beside her bed, her features dimly lit from the single lamp sitting on the edge of the table beside her bed. She leaned over Amanda as she said softly, "How do you feel?"

                "Terrible," Amanda croaked. "I hurt so much…oh God…Where am I?" She tried to sit up, but the woman placed a hand on her chest and gently pressed her back down onto the bed. Amanda struggled against the hand for a moment more, then gave in and lay still. It hurt too much to fight.

                "Hank brought you here," the woman said quietly. She adjusted something on Amanda's IV, and Amanda found herself drifting off into darkness.

                Xavier came down some time later, at Ororo's and Hank's request, and Ororo told him that Amanda had awakened. "I adjusted the pain medication in her IV to put her back to sleep because she asked where she was, and I did not know what to tell her."

                Xavier sighed. "She cannot be moved at all?" he said to Hank.

                "Only at grave risk to her life," Hank said. "She may have awakened, but she still has a great deal of healing to do. Any movement now will undoubtedly slow or set back the healing process."

                He sighed. "I don't see any other option. We must tell her the truth."

                When Amanda awakened again, Hank was sitting beside her bed, holding her hand. She smiled weakly at him. "Hi," she whispered.

                "Hello," he said, standing up and checking on a monitor over her head. "How are you feeling?"

                "Like I've just been run over by a truck," she said dryly. "Other than that, I'm doing great. How about you?"

                "I've been worried," Hank said quietly. "Amanda, what happened?"

                Tears filled her eyes and she tried to blink them back as she stared at the ceiling. Funny, it didn't look like the ceiling of a hospital room. "The father of a couple of those boys we fought with last night brought some of his friends to beat me up," she said. 

                "Two nights," Hank corrected her gently. "It was Saturday night when we went to the theater. It's almost six o'clock Tuesday morning now."

                "My classes!" Amanda tried to sit up, but Hank held her down firmly. "It is all right," he said. "Jubilee called the college and informed them that you would be unable to teach for a while."

                Amanda closed her eyes. "The rent's due on my apartment," she said. "If I don't get paid, I'll lose my apartment."

                "Do not worry about that," he said firmly. "It appears you will be staying here for some time anyway."

                "Where is here?" Amanda had a fuzzy recollection of waking up earlier and talking to a pretty young woman with long silver hair, but she wasn't sure if it was just another dream. "I think I talked to someone already…she had long silver hair…" 

                The light brightened in the room, and she turned her head, to see the woman come forward. She was beautiful, Amanda thought. Tall, graceful, with chocolate skin and silver hair, the color combination might have looked odd on anyone else, but on her it was stunning.

                "That was I you spoke to," the woman said, walking over to Amanda's bed with a cup of water in her hand. She handed the cup to Hank, and he carefully slid a hand under Amanda's head and supported her as he held the cup for her to drink from. She swallowed the water gratefully, sighing as it soothed the soreness in her throat caused by her screaming. "I am sorry, Amanda. I did not know what to tell you. I put you back to sleep until I could answer your question."

                Amanda was looking quite puzzled. "So where am I?" she asked.

                "You are in my house," came a quiet voice from the doorway. Amanda looked past Hank to the kind-looking older bald man sitting in…

                Her mouth dropped open, and stayed open. He smiled thinly at her, and said gently, "This will be a lot to absorb all at once, my dear, but please try. My name is Charles Xavier; this is my house. Hank lives here and works here; there is a fully-equipped laboratory just down the hall from this room. This is where we take care of our injuries."

                "Our? We? Who's we?" she asked.

                "We are the X-Men," Xavier said. "This is our…base, if you want to use that term."

                Amanda looked around the room. It all made sense. This wasn't a hospital, it was a private residence. But…

                "All those funny machines…"

                Xavier said quietly, "They are a loan from someone who lives…quite far away. We are not constrained to conform to federal standards for medical equipment, so our equipment will be quite different from the normal technology you would expect to see in a hospital. They are also much more effective at promoting an early healing."

                "How early?" Amanda asked suspiciously.

                Hank consulted a screen somewhere over her head. "Well, as you're not a mutant, the technology works a bit more slowly, but at your current rate of healing, you should be up and around by next Monday."

                "All this?" Amanda stared in disbelief at the splints and bandages all over her legs, arms, and ribs. "This I'm going to have to see."


	7. The Mansion

Chapter 7: The Mansion

                "Be careful, Amanda," Hank cautioned as she slid her feet over the edge of the bed. 

                Amanda nodded and clung to the rail on the bed as her feet touched the floor. The white tile was cold on her bare feet, but there wasn't really anything that could be done about that. She stood for a moment, trying to adjust to the feel of standing again after five days in bed, then released the rail and took a step forward.

                Hank caught her as she pitched forward, off-balance. "Maybe I should stay in bed another day," Amanda said quietly.

                Hank shook his head. "Your recovery has been sufficiently rapid to make movement necessary," he said firmly. "Should you remain prone any longer, you may begin to lose muscle tone."

                She grabbed his arm and pushed herself upright. Hank steadied her as she stood there for a second, finding her balance, then she took a slow step forward. When she didn't fall over, she took another step. Then another.

                Xavier chose that moment to enter, and almost ran into her. Her arms pinwheeled wildly, and she almost lost her balance. Xavier froze his hoverchair in place, eyes wide, until she regained her balance, then ventured, "I'm sorry; I did not know you were going to be…"

                "It's all right," Amanda said cheerfully, leaning against Hank's chest as she smiled at him. "I have to relearn how to walk. You know, you never know how much a simple step can mean until your legs don't obey you anymore."

                "Indeed," Xavier said dryly. Amanda suddenly flushed. 

                "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" She fell silent as Hank helped her back to a sitting position on the bed. "I didn't mean to…" 

                "It's quite all right," Xavier said, bringing his hoverchair a little further into the room and smiling at her discomfiture. "I have heard it all, and worse, since the accident happened."

                "But with all the wonderful technology you have here, shouldn't Hank be able to fix your spine?" Amanda persisted. Xavier shook his head.

                "The technology here may be advanced, but the damage done to my spine was irreparable," he said quietly. 

                "Have you seen some of the latest research they've been doing with shark nerve cells?" Amanda asked, interested. "I was at a conference with Dr. Clarence Sullivan of the Royal Academy of Medicine last year, and he was talking about a possible treatment for spinal-cord injuries."

                Xavier shook his head. "I have not heard of it," he said.

                Amanda ran a hand through her hair. "Well, Dr. Sullivan found that sharks, since they continue to grow during their entire life and don't stop, need to grow new nerve cells so that the spine grows along with the animal. He is working on a way to adapt the shark's spinal nerve cells' growth properties to the human physiology, and if that can be done, people with injuries could actually grow new nerve endings to replace ones damaged in accidents."

                Xavier blinked. To be able to walk again! He kept his face neutral as he said, "That is wonderful news. I shall have to see what I can find out about his research, and how far he's gotten."

                Amanda's forehead wrinkled as she rummaged in her memory. "If I'm correct, he should have had an article come out in the June edition of the Royal Academy of Medicine's biannual newsletter. It's undoubtedly going to contain the latest news on his research."

                "I shall look into it," Xavier inclined his head toward her in a  grateful acknowledgement of her information. "Meanwhile, Hank, Jean and Ororo wish to know if they should fix a plate for Amanda or if she will be coming up for lunch."

                "I don't think I'm going to make it up the stairs," Amanda said regretfully. Over the last few days, restless at being confined to bed, she had Hank tell her about the mansion and its inhabitants. He even brought his laptop into her recovery room just off the main operating room and given her a look at the schematics for the mansion's layout. 

                She had been perfunctorily interested in all of it, but her passion had been reserved for the machines in the medlab and what could be done with them. As he went about the task of caring for her bandages and wound dressings, she asked endless questions about what he might be using at the time, how it worked, and even insisted on watching. She'd been taken aback when he took the bandages off her arm and she'd seen the edges of skin, cut apart from the surgery necessary to set the broken bones, healed without a scar.

                Xavier said lightly, "Hank?"

                Hank shook his head. "I believe we will be dining here, Charles. Amanda is not yet ready to climb stairs, and in her current fragile condition I do not believe it would be wise to even attempt it."

                "Why not use my wheelchair?" For a moment Amanda thought he was offering her the use of his personal transport, and she was about to decline because she hadn't the foggiest notion of how to use the thing, but he shook his head quickly. "No, not this. It would be easier, my dear, but I have only the one, unfortunately. No, I have another wheelchair, a normal one, which I use when I go out. I was thinking you might use that."

                Hank brought it out from a nearby closet, and Amanda slid herself into it gingerly, trying not to jostle anything. Hank had given her pain medication, but she hated pills, and only took one when it was absolutely necessary. Right now everything was throbbing dully, a faint, manageable ache, but it could flare up anytime if she moved something the wrong way. She reached over the arms of her chair, but Hank gently put her arms (one bandaged from wrist to elbow, one bare) back into her lap and took the handles of the wheelchair. With him pushing, she was treated to the grand tour of the lower level of the mansion on the way to the lift that would take them up to the kitchen. Most of the doors were closed, but one door was open; and she saw a clean, sterile white laboratory inside, with test tubes and all sorts of  instruments in it. She sighed as they passed it. "You're so lucky," she said quietly, a little enviously, at Hank. "Look at that lab. I'd love to take a look sometime; it's got to be better than sharing stuff with a whole bunch of other people."

                Hank leaned in. "After you recover, Amanda, perhaps you might consider bringing your research and your notes here to work in between teaching classes. I would welcome the company, and the chance to assist you."

                Amanda twisted in the wheelchair, ignoring the pain that bloomed at the small of her back as her bruised kidneys protested the movement. "Really? You'd let me come here and work? But what about…wouldn't you…"

                Xavier laid a hand on her arm. "Your research is too important to all of us to afford letting it lie for lack of facilities," he said.

                Amanda nodded. "I'd like that," she said.

                They got into the elevator, and she watched the door close on that gray utilitarian hallway. She stared at the door for a few seconds, waiting for the customary jerk upward as the elevator started, but she didn't feel anything. It was something of a surprise when the door opened a minute later and she saw a short hallway leading into the kitchen and the source of a lot of good-smelling food. She looked at Hank, surprise written all over her face. "I didn't even feel the elevator start!"

                Xavier laughed. "The hydraulics are much better than you're used to," he said, and led the way out of the elevator and down the hall toward the kitchen. Hank pushed her down the hall after him and turned into a room just off the kitchen. 

                It was set up as an informal dining room. There were already people in there, and Amanda recognized several of them from the news reports she'd seen. The tall, muscular man with the odd-looking red glasses was Cyclops; Hank called him Scott. The slim redhead floating…_floating!_…steaming bowls of soup through the air to various places around the table was Phoenix, or Jean. The silver-haired woman Hank called Ororo was here as well, and sitting beside her was a long-purple-haired woman Hank had said was Elisabeth. And Amanda's heart skipped a beat as her eyes lit on the man beside Elisabeth. Tall, blond, almost sinfully handsome, with huge, white, feathered wings tucked tight to his back, he looked a little like Bruce except for the pale-blue skin and feathers. She could barely take her eyes off him, and was glad when Jean sent a bowl of soup skimming telepathically down the table toward her so that she'd have something to distract her.

                Xavier was monitoring Amanda telepathically; had been since the pain in her kidneys had flared up. She hadn't noticed. He looked at her narrowly, wondering about the sudden surge of emotion from her, and saw her gaze riveted to Warren. Oh no. Up till now she'd had eyes only for Hank; but if she developed an attraction for Warren it could lead to trouble between the two men. Warren and Hank were close friends; he hoped Amanda wouldn't become a source of friction between them. He had been considering having Amanda stay at the mansion until she was fully recovered, but perhaps that wouldn't be so wise. 

                Amanda was introduced to everyone around the table, and lunch commenced. Amanda just picked at the soup, sandwiches, and muffins; she was too busy absorbing the names that went with the faces and listening to the chatter. Jubilee was getting into a friendly argument with Bobby about which one of them was a better snowball thrower, and it escalated until Ororo said, "Why don't you both settle this outside after lunch? If I am correct, the snow should be tapering off in an hour or so, and there should be sufficient accumulation to provide ample material for snowballs."

                "Yes, and shovel the drive while you're at it," Warren spoke, earning a dirty look from Jubilee. He snickered at her disgusted face and said, "Well, I did hear you and Jean say you wanted to go shopping later. If you want to get out of the driveway, you'll have to shovel it."

                Jubilee was about to protest, but stopped in mid-sentence and looked down the table to where Jean was sitting. There was a moment of silence, during which everyone went about as though things were normal, than Jubilee grinned and said, "You're on." Amanda was puzzled for a moment before she figured that they must have said something to each other telepathically. Hank had mentioned that they were both telepaths.

                "Snow?" she said quietly to Hank. "I didn't know it was snowing outside!"

                "Oh, yes," he said. "It began yesterday morning. I believe the weather reporter said we have accumulated about six inches so far." He looked at her contritely. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you did not know. There are no windows in your room downstairs, after all." He looked at her thoughtfully. "You are not much shorter than Betsy," he said. "Perhaps I could persuade her to lend you a jacket and some warmer clothing, and we might venture outside  for some fresh air."

                "Of course!" Betsy said, getting up from the table and putting her bowl and plate in the sink. "Come on. Let me take you upstairs and find you something that fits."

                The rooms upstairs were as comfortable-looking as her room downstairs was. Amanda looked around the room, at the distinctly oriental flavor to the décor, and said, "Are all the rooms as tastefully done?"

                "All our rooms started out plain," Betsy said. "But we're allowed to decorate ours as we like. I'm Japanese, so my room has an Eastern taste to the decorations." She dug around in her dresser for a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt. "Perhaps later you and Hank might return to your apartment and pick up some of your own clothes--" She paused. "Hank's room is just down the hall, if you'd like to see it," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

                "How did you know--" 

                "I'm a telepath. I can read minds. Don't worry, though; I only read surface impressions. Charles has set down a lot of rules about the use of mental powers, both inside and outside the mansion. We all follow them." She opened the door and pushed Amanda's wheelchair out into the hall and down a short way before opening the door to another room.

                The first thing that Amanda saw when she looked in was the massive bed. It was king-sized, with heavy wooden posts and extra metal beams supporting the mattress. She took a look and started to laugh. Betsy looked at her puzzled, and Amanda stopped laughing long enough to explain that when Hank had tried to lie on her bed he had broken it. "I don't wonder, now," she chuckled, wiping her eyes. "If his bed is built to handle his weight, then it's no wonder why mine fell apart."

                Betsy laughed too, and as she did so, Amanda looked around. The Periodic Table dominated one wall of his room, and two large dressers sat against the opposite wall. A small mirror sat atop the dresser, and a desk with a pile of papers and pens on it sat in the corner by the window. Amanda guessed, by the way the room looked, Hank didn't spend a whole lot of time in it.

                She returned to Betsy's room and started trying to get her arms into the shirt and jeans Betsy had found for her. It wasn't easy, given the awkwardness of the bandages, but eventually they managed to get the clothes on, Betsy was just trying to get the gloves on Amanda's hands when Hank tapped on the door and poked his head in. "Might I have the honor of escorting my lady out on the lawn for a bit of fresh air?" 

                Amanda grinned at him. "Certainly, Sir Henry," she joked back. Hank took the gloves from Betsy and slid them on effortlessly. "Thank you, Betsy," he said. "Will you be joining us?"

                "Go on ahead," she said, waving a hand at them. "I'll be out in a few moments." They left, and Betsy was left with her own thoughts.

                She'd caught the odd mental reaction Amanda had when she saw Warren. It had been physical attraction, and as Betsy took her upstairs, she'd gently probed Amanda's mind, to satisfy her own misgivings. Amanda thought Warren looked like her former fiancé and thought he was handsome. That was all. She'd wondered, at first, but when Hank came in Amanda had been so totally wrapped up in Hank she didn't have a single thought in her mind for Warren. 

                She got her confirmation when she went outside, wrapped against the cold. Ororo had been right; the storm had cleared, and left seven inches of snow on the ground. Jubilee and Jean were busy with shovels, clearing the snow from one side of the driveway for snowballs, and Bobby and Warren were shoveling the other side. Logan and Scott were busy over behind the pile of snow, hidden from Bobby and Warren's view, getting a head start on snowballs. 

                Amanda was seated in the wheelchair on the small area of cleared driveway, laughing as Hank and Remy engaged in a furious mini-snowball fight of their own. Hank seemed to be coming off best in that fight; He could make and throw snowballs faster than Remy, using his feet as well as his hands. Amanda was cheering Hank on, and Rogue was spurring Remy on to greater effort, but it was already clear who the winner would be, and after another few volleys from Hank that left Remy covered in snow from head to foot, he conceded the match by throwing up his hands. Amanda gave Hank a deep, fervent kiss. Betsy watched, amused, Hank began insisting Amanda go in or she would catch cold. Amanda resisted, Hank insisted. Finally, owing in large part to the fact that she really was tired, Amanda allowed Hank to push her back into the mansion.

                Betsy smiled as she adjusted her scarf. Amanda loved Hank, There was no doubt about that. She didn't have to worry. 

                She turned, surveyed the huge pile of snowballs Logan had amassed, and decided to even the odds a little. "Bobby! Warren!" she called. "Logan's making snowballs! Want me to start making them for you?"


	8. The Kidnapping

Chapter 8: The Kidnapping

                Amanda stared at the whole, unblemished skin under the bandages on her arms as Hank began to cut away the cast on her leg. "I wouldn't have believed it if I weren't seeing it with my own eyes," she said in wonderment. "A week, and it's all healed!"

                "Well, not quite," Xavier said. "The bones may not be completely knitted together yet, so you will need to be careful not to re-break anything over the next couple of weeks." He leaned forward as Amanda watched Hank unwrap the bandage around her ribs. "Amanda, you must promise not to tell anyone what you've seen here. There are many people who would literally kill for the technology in this mansion."

                "I don't wonder," Amanda said, looking around at the now-familiar instruments in the medlab. After a week of living down here, and having Hank explain all their functions more than a few times, she was fairly sure that a lot of it was technology that a lot of people would cheerfully give various body parts for. Though she still believed that the technology should be shared, Xavier's revelation about the source of the technology had shocked her, and she understood why he wanted to keep the knowledge private.

                She still couldn't believe that there was a whole universe full of aliens out there…and that one of them, she was reasonably certain, was Xavier's lover. She'd seen the expression on his face whenever he spoke of the 'Shi'ar Empress Lilandra', and she recognized it as one she'd seen on her own face many times in the last week or so. Love.

                "Of course I'll keep it a secret," Amanda said.

                Xavier smiled. "That being said, Amanda, I have been considering it, and I believe your research is too important to be allowed to lapse for lack of proper facilities in which to conduct it. I spoke to Hank, and he says he has no objection to sharing his laboratory with you. So if you would like, feel free to bring your research and notes here and leave them in the lab. Don't hesitate to come here anytime you want to do some work. I'm sure that Hank would be willing to assist you should your teaching duties require you to be elsewhere during a critical stage in your experiments."

                "Really?" Oh, to be able to work in that lab, to have access to all that equipment…the equipment would allow her to be able to keep track of results she normally wouldn't be able to. This beat Bruce's lab all hollow. "I'd love that. Thank you so much!"

                The cast came off her leg, and Hank took her am. "Now try to stand," he said. Amanda slid her feet off the edge of the bed and stood, albeit a bit shakily. Hank brought forward a contraption of aluminum rods and Velcro straps, and Amanda hung onto the bed as he strapped the brace onto her leg around her ankle, knee, and hip. He finally stood back, handed her a pair of crutches, and watched as she took a step. 

                She got out into the hallway, then headed for the stairs that would take her up to the kitchen. "You can take the lift," Hank said, gesturing at the elevator at the other end of the hall, but Amanda shook her head. "I have to figure out how to do steps," she said. "My apartment building doesn't have elevators. All the handicapped people have first floor apartments. It's a pain in the neck for the elderly woman upstairs, but even though we've complained to the building's owner, he hasn't done anything about it." 

                She balanced gingerly on her two feet and braced her crutches on the bottom step, then with a grunt of effort, she lifted herself up onto the step. She stopped, sighed, and then took the next step, grimly determined to make it.

                Xavier watched Amanda struggle up the steps. He would have to find out who owned Amanda's apartment building. Not having handicapped-accessible apartments and facilities was against building codes. The tenants might not have gotten results, but he was fairly certain if he wrote a letter to the owner and then to the building inspectors, improvements…like elevators and handicapped ramps…would be installed around the apartments quite soon.

He winced as the end of one crutch slipped on the step and she fell back a step, only saved from tumbling back down the four steps she'd already taken by grabbing the banisters. The crutches fell to the step she stood on, and she sucked in a breath and bit her lip as muscles in her barely functioning arm protested. Even shielded Xavier could feel the spike of pain running up her arm, and a tear started involuntarily to her eye. Nevertheless, she braced herself on the banister and bent to pick up the crutches to try again.

Hank rushed forward to get her crutches for her, but she held up a hand to stop him and tried to pick them up herself. "Hank, I have to do this myself," she said gently. "You might be able to help me up the stairs a few times, but you can't be there all the time. You can't be there when I'm coming in from the night classes at the college. I have to do this myself." She started up another step.

Xavier winced at the pain she was feeling and not telling Hank about. He was also worried. She couldn't keep pushing herself like this with re-injuring something, and hurting herself again. "Amanda," he said. "How many steps are there up to your apartment?"

"Two sets of twelve," she said grimly, leaning on a crutch and resting for a moment. Xavier looked at the six steps she'd already climbed, and realized that no matter how hard she tried, there was no way she was going to be able to make her way up twenty-four steps without assistance. 

                Betsy chose that moment to come down the stairs, and Amanda fumbled with her crutches for a moment to try to move aside. She didn't make it. Her crutches tumbled out of her grasp, and she was just saved from falling all the way down by Betsy's quick grab for her upper arm. Amanda nearly cried out in pain at the sudden grip. Xavier saw the look of anguish on her face, and winced.

                Betsy spoke to him telepathically, on a tight thread so that Hank and Amanda couldn't hear her as she descended the last few steps and allowed Hank to ascend them with Amanda's crutches. **Charles, why is she trying to take the stairs? She's not going to make it. Her arms can barely grip the crutches.**

**                Because she has to go home, and the only way up to her apartment is stairs, **he told her.

                **Isn't that against building codes? Don't the regulations say there has to be handicapped access to the apartments?**

                **Yes, well, apparently the owners of her apartment building have not been too concerned with ensuring that everyone can get to where they need to go.**

**                That's awful.** Betsy was silent for a moment.** She's going to reinjure something. Her arm's killing her right now. I didn't realize I grabbed so hard. Charles, why can't she live here until she's completely healed?**

                Xavier was silent. Betsy looked at him sharply. **Is this about this attraction between Amanda and Warren?**

Xavier stared at her. **How did you know?**

                Betsy smiled. **I was sitting beside Warren at the table,** she said. **I saw the way she looked at him. If that's the only reason, Charles, you really don't need to worry.**

                **Really?** He must have sounded skeptical, because Betsy rested a hand on his shoulder.

                **Really,** she assured him. **I took Amanda up to my room later to find her some clothes to wear so she could go out and get some air. She reacted that way simply because Warren looks like her ex-fiancé. There's no serious attraction there, Charles. Amanda's got eyes only for Hank.**

                **Hmm.** Xavier was silent for a moment, then said aloud, "Amanda?"

                She paused on the tenth step, looking back down at him, and he dropped his shields long enough to feel the pain coming from the overworked, still-healing muscles in her arms and legs. There was no way she was going to make it up to her apartment. "If you continue to have this much trouble you'll never make it up to your apartment. Why don't you stay here until you can get about on your own?"

                Amanda shook her head. "No, I couldn't impose on you like that," she said. "I can make it, I just need to take my time getting up the stairs." She gritted her teeth, set her crutches on the top step, and tried to pull herself up the last one to the kitchen.

                The rug at the top of the step slipped out from under the foot of one crutch, and it flew out of her weak arm. Unable to keep her balance, she reeled wildly, then with a cry she fell backward, down the steps she'd just laboriously climbed up, and landed in a heap. 

                "Amanda!" Hank was beside her instantly, lifting her from where she lay crumpled at the foot of the stairs. As her tangled hair fell away from her face, Xavier saw the expression of pain as she cradled her left arm. Betsy disappeared, and came back holding Hank's scanner. He ran it up her upper arm. "It's fractured again," he said grimly. "Come on, let me get you back to the lab. Amanda, you're staying here. Don't argue with me." He led her off toward the medlabs, followed by Betsy.

                Amanda bit back her sob of pain as Hank ran the bone-knitter up her arm again. The fracture on the screen of the scanner pulled together, but the bone knitter wasn't designed for use on a human. All the equipment Lilandra had given them was designed for use on mutant physiology, and it wasn't going to heal Amanda as fast as it would the X-Men. Hank grimly splinted and re-bandaged her left upper arm bone, and then gave Amanda an injection of painkiller to relieve the pain. "You're going to stay here," he said. 

                "No," Amanda said weakly, but it wasn't as vehement as it had been a few minutes earlier.

                "Why?" Hank asked.

                She sighed. "I'm tired of being down here," she said quietly. "I want my own bed and my own clothes. These biobeds aren't exactly the most comfortable. And I can't keep borrowing clothes. I just…I really want to go home."

                "You don't have to stay down here," Xavier said. "You could move upstairs into one of the spare bedrooms. The lift extends up to the second floor; you could use that until Hank says you're well enough to take the steps. And I don't see why you and Hank couldn't take a trip out to your apartment and pick up your clothes. And your research notes and samples."

                Amanda looked at him wryly. "You just want to see the research," she said, but there was no accusation in her voice. "But all right. I'll stay here." She held up a warning finger. "Only until I'm healed, mind you," she said to Hank, but her smile belied the firm words.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                So it was that a few hours later Hank was driving Amanda downtown to her apartments. On the way, he began asking her questions. Amanda answered them as best she could, patiently explaining all the aspects of her research, until they pulled up outside her apartment building. Amanda was about to get out her crutches when Hank swept her up in his arms and began to carry her up the stairs, still talking.

                "The initial tests indicated the presence of a hexagonal ambyloid reovirus protein, which is what a virus needs to meld with the coat of a living cell. The reovirus we're talking about attaches itself to a cell, the releases an enzyme called reverse transcriptase to 'eat' through a cell's wall and inject its contents into a cell. The proteins inside the reovirus take the mutant X-factor in the carrier cell and dissolve the rest of the normal proteins inside the cell, until all that's left is mutated DNA inside the cell. Then the cell (no longer a carrier cell, but a fully mutated one) splits in the process called mitosis, and begins to multiply. It produces more mutated cells, crowding out the normal cells."

                "So what happens when the reovirus comes in contact with a normal cell?"

                "It 'searches' for the X-factor, and if it doesn't find it in the cell, it dies, and takes the cell with it. The dead cell dissolves and then the material is absorbed into the rapidly multiplying mutant cells. The mutated cells multiply until they're all that's left. The individual is no longer human, or a carrier. It's a mutant." Hank put her down on the landing outside her apartment, and she opened the door.

                The inside of the apartment was clean; a few days after Amanda had arrived at the mansion, Jean, Betsy, Rogue, Ororo, and Jubilee had come in and cleaned up, taking the pieces of the bed frame out to the dumpster. They had also paid Amanda's rent for another month, under Xavier's orders, so that she wouldn't be evicted. Hank had told her all this when she awoke, so she was spared the sight of her blood all over the floor.

                She pulled her suitcase out from under her bed and started to pack it as Hank opened her closet door and took out the box of notes and research materials. "I'll take this out to the van," he told her. "Please go on packing."

                He disappeared, and Amanda went on packing. It was only a few minutes until she heard her front door open. "Hank?" she said. He couldn't have gotten all the way out to the van yet. "Hank?"

                She stared in surprise as her next-door neighbor, the man living in the apartment next to her, came in. "Excuse me, you're not supposed to be in here," she said. "Please leave."

                The man crossed the room to where she was standing by her bed, and Amanda stiffened as he placed the edge of a very sharp knife against her throat "Not a word," he hissed into Amanda's ear. "Scream and I cut your throat. We don't need you whole."

                Amanda drew a sharp breath and held very still as the man pressed against her back. "'We' who?" she whispered.

                "I'm a member of a group called the Acolytes," the man said. "I heard you talking in the hall about finding a virus that can trigger mutations in normal humans?"

                Amanda was silent. The man exerted a slight pressure against the knife at her throat, and Amanda felt the small prick of pain as it punctured the skin of her throat. "Yes," she said tensely.

                "Then that is something that interests us greatly," the man said. "And as luck would have it, we can also capture the X-Men's Beast, too. How very fortuitous." 

                Amanda heard Hank's footsteps coming up to her apartment door, but before she could scream at him to run, the knife pricked her throat again. She was in no condition to fight the man.

                Hank walked into the bedroom and froze. "Neophyte," he breathed in sharply as he saw the face of the man holding Amanda. His eyes widened as he saw the thin trickle of blood running down her throat. "Let her go."

                "Oh, no," Neophyte purred. "I think Magneto will want her, you, and the research. You see, Beast, Lord Magneto has been searching for a way to banish the line between 'us' and 'them', between humans and mutants, and this virus is exactly the thing we need to do it. After we infect the normal humans with her," and he tightened his grip on Amanda's arm, "virus, there will be no more 'us', no more 'them'. We will all be mutants, and they will have to deal with that." He nodded toward the closet. "Grab that last box in there, Beast, and we will go." Neophyte began to nudge Amanda toward the door. Hank followed, carrying the last box of notes. They were outside when Hank said, "The virus samples are in Amanda's refrigerator."

                Neophyte was already badly encumbered by Amanda's brace and crutches, and not inclined to walk back into the apartment. "Go get them," he snapped, jerking his head back at the apartment door. "I know there's no other way out, so go get them. But Beast, if you're not back in a few minutes, I'll cut her throat."

                Hank nodded, set the box of papers down, and went back in. As soon as he got inside the kitchen, he grabbed for the pen sitting atop the answering machine, and for the pad of paper. He scribbled one word on it, then rushed to the freezer. The plastic bags with the words 'virus samples' written on them were in her icebox. He grabbed the packets and closed the door as he heard Neophyte call, "Get out here now, or she dies!" 

                Wordlessly he joined them out on the landing. Neophyte didn't bother trying to hide what he was doing, and kept the knife out. There was little chance that anyone would see them anyway, it being almost ten o'clock. 

                "You drive," he snapped to Hank as he climbed into the back of the van and forcibly wrestled Amanda into the backseat. "Do what I tell you, or I'll kill her." To emphasize his point, he jabbed Amanda in the neck again. Another trickle of blood joined the drying one already on her neck. 

                Hank turned his attention to the road.


	9. Magneto's Agenda

Chapter 9: Magneto's Agenda

                They drove for what seemed like hours and hours. Amanda was tired, exhausted, and her pain medication had worn off some time ago. Her arm was killing her.

                She gave a soft moan, and Hank looked at her in the rear-view mirror, since she was sitting in the seat directly behind him. "Amanda, are you all right?"

                She started to nod, then thought better of it as the knife pricked her throat again. "My arm hurts," she said quietly. "But I'm all right. Hank, who are the Acolytes?"

                Since Neophyte didn't seem to be averse to their talking, Hank filled her in. "The Acolytes are Magneto's followers. Magneto, whose real name is Erik Lehnsherr, was a friend of Charles Xavier's, quite a long time ago. They parted ways over a difference of opinion; Erik believes that there will be a war between humans and mutants, and that mutants will gain the upper hand. Charles, on the other hand, believes that mutants and humans can eventually learn to live together peacefully.

                "Just as Charles has us, the X-Men, Magneto has a group of followers called the Acolytes. They embrace Magneto's belief that the war is coming. I believe that when Magneto hears about this virus you have discovered he will try to get you to develop it so that he can infect every human on earth with it."

                "That's terrible!" Amanda exclaimed. "Mutation…or not…should be a matter of personal choice or fate, not a matter of engineering or force. To force a mutation on every person on the planet…Hank, it's a violation of all the basic human rights--"

                Neophyte ran an arm across her throat from behind, choking off her words as he cut off her air. She gagged, clawing helplessly at the strong arm across her throat. Hank said desperately, "Neophyte, stop it. She was simply expressing her opinion; you don't have to choke her! Stop it!"

                Stars swam in Amanda's vision, and she was almost unconscious when Neophyte released her and replaced his arm with the knife. She sank back into the seat, gasping. "Human rights," Neophyte snapped. "What about 'mutant rights'? Your kind don't much care about mutant rights, do you? Not on Genosha. Not in restaurants that mutants aren't allowed to patronize, apartment buildings that won't let you live there if you're a mutant, restrooms and public transportations we aren't allowed to use, and all those other forms of discrimination against us mutants that your stupid kind impose. Don't talk to me about 'human' rights, flatscan!"

                "But this isn't the way to protest it," Amanda said. "And what you're doing now, kidnapping me, isn't the way to show us that those rules shouldn't be imposed. Rather, actions like kidnapping, destruction of public property, murder, and assault just reinforce the unreasoning hatred that some humans have for mutants. But not all of us humans are like that; just as not all mutants are bad."

                "Shut up," Neophyte snarled. "Stop driving, Beast. Pull over." He opened the van door, wrestled Amanda out, leaving her crutches inside the van, and then gestured to the boxes of notes and the virus samples. "Get those, Beast," he said. "And no funny stuff. I still got your girl."

                It was dark outside, moonless and starless. Amanda shivered as a chill wind whipped through her thin jacket. She hadn't dressed at the mansion for the cold, and Neophyte hadn't given her a chance to put on a coat. She had a dim impression of a tall building in front of her, but the darkness made distinguishing details impossible. A door opened, and Amanda stopped shivering as a blast of warm air bathed her cold body before Neophyte dragged her into the building and the door clicked shut behind them. Hank walked in ahead of them, carrying the two boxes of notes and her virus samples, moving carefully and making no sudden moves. 

                The hallway suddenly opened out into a large living room. Amanda looked around her, taking in her surroundings. The room was occupied by several people, mutants all, from the way they looked. There was a huge chair before the fireplace, and a figure sat in it.

                "Ah, Neophyte," said a smooth, cultured voice from the depths of the chair as its occupant turned around. "So nice of you to join us. Who are your guests?" The chair completed its easy turn, and Amanda stared at the man in front of her.

                He looked completely normal, to her relief, because the green demon-like figure in the corner was making her feel distinctly nervous. Hank said to her quietly, "Magneto."

                So this was Magneto. Amanda studied him as he studied her. This was the man she had heard mentioned on TV sometimes as the most dangerous mutant on the planet. He held an air of dignity around him like the cloak of a king, even sitting, and it seemed vaguely familiar. Then Amanda realized where she'd seen that before; it was the same regal bearing, the same dignity, that Charles Xavier himself had. But this man also carried with him an aura of danger.

                "This is the human who lives in the apartment beside me, Lord," Neophyte said, bending low in a bow. "The human that I mentioned had been seeing the X-Men's Beast. I overheard them talking in the hall about a discovery she has made, Lord, and I believed that you should hear of it."

                "What is this discovery that I should find so interesting?" Magneto said, rising out of his chair and walking over in front of Amanda. Neophyte started to say something, but Magneto cut him off. "Not you. I want to hear it from her."

                Amanda stood silent and defiant in front of him, refusing to answer. He was taller than herself, by a good head, but she wasn't about to let that intimidate her.

                He narrowed his eyes. "Foolish child," he said. "You can't hope to defy me. Answer the question."

                Amanda stayed silent.

                He held a hand in front of him, opened his fingers, and looked down at the brace on her leg. Amanda gasped as the aluminum pieces tightened around the still-healing limb, but made no other move.

                Magneto curled his fingers a little tighter. The metal pieces tightened further. When she didn't answer, he balled his fist.

                Amanda screamed and dropped to the floor, crying in pain as the pieces of metal dug deep into her leg. Blood stained the leg of her borrowed jeans. "Stop," she sobbed out, fumbling for the Velcro straps. "Please stop…ow…" she was nearly incoherent from pain.

                He bent the metal rods back outward, out of her leg, and she curled up there on the floor, whimpering. Hank dropped the boxes and samples, and tried to rush to her side, but Magneto waved a hand, and two of the other mutants in the room came forward. Sven and Harlan Kleinstock each grabbed one of Hank's arms.

                "Amelia," he said, never taking his eyes off Amanda where she lay on the floor before him, "Bring the cage." Amelia lowered a metal cage down from the ceiling above, and opened its door. "Beast," he said to Hank, "Get in."

                Hank made no movement toward the cage. Magneto studied Amanda thoughtfully, then made a fist again. The metal brace dug into Amanda's leg again, and she screamed in pain. "I shall continue this until you obey, Beast," Magneto said coldly. Hank stood still a moment more, hesitant, then stepped into the cage. Amelia closed the door and engaged the electronic lock. An electric forcefield sprang into existence between the bars.

                He knelt in front of Amanda, took her chin in his hand, and tilted her face up to his. "My dear, I don't want to hurt you unless I have to, but I will have my questions answered. What have you discovered?"

                Amanda dropped her eyes and refused to speak.

                Magneto stepped back, looked at her, at the cage with Hank in it, then raised a hand. The cage, incredibly, began to shrink, folding in on itself and its occupant. Amanda stared disbelievingly as Hank curled into a ball inside the cage, trying to keep the electrified cage from touching his skin, but it was inevitable, and Amanda flinched as she heard Hank scream and smelled the sizzle of burning fur. 

                "Stop it!" She cried, unable to bear the sound of Hank's howls of pain. "Stop it! The discovery…it's a virus that codes for the mutant gene in carrier cells and triggers rapid forced mutations." The bars moved away from Hank's body, and Amanda stared anguished at the dark scorch marks in his fur.

                Magneto smiled. "All you had to do was answer my question," he said cheerfully. "Now answer the rest of my questions, or I hurt your lover again." He had seen the looks Amanda and Hank had given each other; he had few doubts as to the nature of their relationship. "First; who are you?"

                "Dr. Amanda Greene," Amanda said, staring at the floor. She had to answer him; she would do anything to keep from having to hear Hank scream like that.

                "Explain your research to me," he said, sitting fluidly down in his chair.

                Amanda told him everything, concentrating on the words so that she couldn't feel the pain in her leg. Her pant leg was soaked with her blood from the metal pieces of her braces digging into her flesh. Magneto was silent until she finished. 

                "Come with me," he said. Amanda pulled herself to her feet and limped painfully across the room to the door he was holding open in the far side of the room. She walked in.

                It was set up like a laboratory. A sparse one, compared to Bruce's and even Xavier's, but a lab nonetheless. It had everything she needed just to extract the virus, though testing it would require something a bit better equipped. Magneto had the other Acolytes bring in her samples and her notes, and said, "Extract more of this virus. I want to see it in action."

                Amanda sighed and set to work. She opened the plastic bag with the algae in it and put a few pieces of the primitive lifeform in a test tube, then checked the nearby shelves for the necessary chemicals. She added some to the test tube, added water, then began to shake it briskly.

                The acids ate through and dissolved the algae from around the virus, leaving the virus behind. Amanda drained off the liquid, leaving a thick yellowish precipitate in the bottom of the test tube, and handed it to Magneto.

                "This is it?" he said quietly. She nodded.

                "I was trying to find out how to change what the virus does," she said absently as she found a pair of scissors and cut away the wet pant leg. She examined the cuts and gashes on her skin, and Magneto broke off his study of the virus to look at her leg. He saw the barely healed cuts and bruises. "What happened?" he asked her.

                Amanda eyed him. "A couple of mutant haters beat me up when they saw me out with Hank," she snapped. "Not that I see how it's your business."

                Magneto sat down on the edge of the table and watched as she used a damp paper towel to wipe away the blood. "My dear, don't you see? That's why I do this. If I can cause mutations in every other human, then there won't be any more 'humans' and 'mutants'. We'll all be mutants. And they will have to accept us once we all are no longer different."

                Amanda snapped, "No, _you_ see. _You_ listen. I've discovered that there are three types of humans; mutants, regular humans, and carriers. A carrier is someone who has the X-factor in his or her blood, but it is not in sufficient quantity, and has not been activated, to transform them to the level of mutant. There is no way to tell a carrier and a normal human together. My ex-fiance tried this on a sample of mutant blood, a sample of human blood, and a sample of carrier blood. 

                "In the mutant blood, it had very little effect. All the virus did was destroy the few normal cells in the sample. In the carrier sample, the virus forced the X-factor into prominence, activated whatever mutation was coded into the gene, and destroyed the normal cells. But when I exposed the normal cells to the virus, it destroyed everything in the sample. The cells all died. Don't you understand? _If you expose a normal human to the virus, it will kill them._ And there's no way to tell who is normal and who isn't unless you test a sample of the individual's blood beforehand!"

                Magneto studied the yellowish precipitate in the bottom of the test tube. "I can live with the deaths of a few humans," he said casually. "It's all for the greater good."

                Amanda slammed her hand down on the table. "Whose good? Yours? The carriers? It's certainly not good for the normal humans. Mutants represent only a small portion of the population, Magneto. It's been estimated that at least sixty percent of the humans on Earth are normal, and thirty percent are mutants. Carriers make up the rest of the population. Are you willing to sacrifice _sixty percent_ of Earth's population in order to make the other forty percent of us the same?" she shook her head. "You're a lunatic." She marched out into the main room. "You got the virus; now let Hank go."

                "How do I know you haven't tampered with it and given me an inert virus?" Magneto asked innocently, opening a drawer. From where she was standing, she couldn't see him pulling a syringe from the drawer. He put the tip of the syringe in the test tube, filled it half full of the yellow gel-like substance, and hid it in the hands he clasped loosely behind his back.

                Amanda rolled her eyes. "You have the man I love captive. As if I would try anything while I knew you could still hurt him." Her voice took on an edge of desperation as she stood under the cage that was holding Hank. "Let him go," she pleaded with him. "Please. He's hurt; you burned him. He needs help. Let me help him, please. I promise I'm not going to try to escape."

                Magneto hesitated, then signaled to Voght. Amelia disengaged the forcefield and the lock, and Amanda immediately pulled open the door and reached inside for Hank. He dragged himself out, wincing as his scorched arm brushed against the bar of the cage coming out, and Amanda knelt beside him on the floor and hugged him, once, briefly, tightly. Then she held up the damp lab towel she'd brought in from the makeshift lab and pressed it against the burn on his arm. He hissed a breath in through his teeth, and then sighed as the cold did its work and eased the pain.

                Magneto approached her. Engrossed, she didn't turn around until it was too late.

                He grabbed her arm and jabbed the needle deep into the muscle.

                Amanda cried out and stumbled back, the movement of her body pulling the needle out of her arm. She stared at the tiny drop of blood on her arm, then at Magneto, and screamed at him, "You bastard!"

                The door blew open.

                Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jubilee, Phoenix, Gambit, Rogue, Psylocke, and Warren stood in the doorway. They stopped just long enough to see who was inside, and sprang into action.

                Rogue ran at Cargill, and the two women traded blows. Rogue had superhuman strength and endurance; so did her opponent. They were more or less evenly matched. Jubilee slipped into Scanner's mind, telepathically knocking him out, then turned her attention to Amelia, keeping the redhead off-balance by assaulting her both telepathically and physically, bombarding her with plasma bursts, distracting her from transubstantiating.

                Senyaka's energy whip flared out, in Wolverine's direction. The snarling mutant met the snaky lash head on, his claws slicing through the length every time Senyaka sent it his way. Beside him, Psylocke was throwing psychic bolts at Spoor, preventing him from downing the X-Men with his pheromones. Phoenix and Unuscione were locked in a deadly battle, Phoenix with her telekinetics against Unuscione's psionic exoskeleton. Scott was busy with his optic beams, blasting the Kleinstock brothers apart, into separate walls, while Storm kept Magneto off balance with the winds whirling him around in its grip.

                "Warren!" Scott barked as he continued firing between the two Kleinstocks. "Get Hank and Amanda out to the Blackbird, now!"

                "I can walk, my friend," Hank said, grabbing the two boxes of notes and the packet of samples. "Take Amanda. She appears to not be feeling well."

                Amanda barely noticed when Warren picked her up and flew her out to the Blackbird. She was flushing alternately cold and hot, and the spot where she had been injected was throbbing and swelling. Hank bent over her, strapping her down to a seat in the Blackbird as he checked her over. He barely noticed when the other X-Men came running up the boarding ramp and took their seats, Scott and Ororo heading for the controls.

                Disoriented from the spinning Storm had subjected him to, Magneto arrived at the door just in time to see the Blackbird take off into the lightening sky.


	10. The Transformation

Chapter 10: The Transformation

                Amanda was silent all the way back to the mansion in the Blackbird. Hank sat in the seat beside her, watching her concernedly. She sat in her seat, shaking slightly, eyes staring straight ahead, arms wrapped around herself. Her hand kept rubbing the spot on her arm absently where Magneto had injected her. The injection site was flushing an angry red, and it looked painful. 

                She made no move as the Blackbird touched down in its hanger, and was unresponsive as Hank unfastened her seatbelt. Jean lifted her out of the plane, and Hank held her up while he and Jean had a quick mental talk with Xavier.

                **Magneto did what?** Was Xavier's shocked reaction.

                **He injected Amanda with her own virus,** Jean's mental voice was grim. **She's been completely unresponsive, almost catatonic, since we found her and Hank.**

                **Take her to the Danger Room.** Xavier's mindvoice was filled with worry. **We don't know what form of mutation the virus will take. The Danger Room is the only one that will shield her in and everyone out until we know what's going to happen.**

                Hank objected. _Charles, the process of mutation killed her first lab subject,_ he thought. He knew Charles was listening in on his mind. _I should take her to the medlab. I can hook her up to an IV, give her the necessary fluids and nutrients to keep the process _from_ draining her to the point where she dies._

                **We can't risk it, Hank,** Xavier said firmly. **If her particular mutation is a destructive one, she's going to be a danger to all of us as well as herself. Her only hope for survival is seclusion in the Danger Room.**

                _Then let me take what I need in there, _Hank said. _I can stay with her, monitor her progress, do what I have to in order to keep her alive._

                Xavier was silent for a moment. **Take the medical equipment necessary into the Danger Room, make sure she is connected to what she needs to survive, and leave. No, Hank, I will not have you argue with me. If she has a potentially dangerous mutation, she could very well injure you. I can't have that. **And Xavier refused to budge on that point.

                Jean wheeled a biobed into the Danger Room as Hank held Amanda. She was still shaking and unresponsive as they laid her down on it, and Hank quickly installed an IV into her arm. He could already see some of the effects of her transformation; Her arms were much thinner, and her cheekbones were becoming more pronounced by the minute as the energy requirements of the transformation started converting her body fat to energy. As an afterthought, he wrapped straps around her and the bed, across her chest, waist, hips, and up and down the arm that held her IV. He didn't want her to accidentally rip the IV out of her arm if she began to struggle. Then he joined Xavier and the others in the observation room above the med lab.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Amanda barely noticed what was happening around her. She knew she was lying down on something soft, that she was alone, and that an IV had been placed in her arm, but everything beyond that was a blur.

                Her arm hurt. It had started soon after the injection, and hadn't let up since then; it had only become worse. She moaned in anguish, sweat beading on her forehead, and dizzily tried to raise her arm, to see if there was any outward change.

                She couldn't move it, and it was only after a few minutes of tugging that she realized that her arm was strapped down. "Hank," she cried, turning her head around, to stare with tear-blind eyes at the empty air around her. "Hank, where are you?"

                In the observation booth, Hank felt his heart constrict painfully in his chest. Such pain and misery and anguish in her voice. He wanted to go down there, and hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right, but he wasn't even sure she was going to be all right.

                Amanda blinked the tears out of her eyes, and turned to face the large observation window dominating one wall of the room. Her eyes brightened as she saw Hank, standing next to Xavier, and she stretched her free arm toward him. "Hank!"

                He left his position in the observation booth, and the door opened for him as he hurried inside. He grasped her shaking hand, holding it close to his chest as he knelt beside her bed. "How do you feel?' he asked her.

                "A little better now," she said quietly. "The pain kind of comes and goes, in waves. It's okay now." She looked him in the eye. "What's going on with my arm?"

                "I had to immobilize it," Hank said to her. "I didn't want to take a chance on having you tear it out of your arm if you began to struggle."

                "What does it look like?" Amanda asked. "The way it feels now it should be on fire."

                Hank examined the arm. "It appears normal," he said. He pulled up her sleeve and looked at her whole arm. "Amanda…" he began hesitantly.

                "Give me the bad news," she said quietly.

                "Your upper arm has gone completely pale. Like hypopigmentation; there is no color left on your skin at all."

                Amanda sighed. "I was afraid I was turning to stone or something," she said with a trace of her usual humor. "If losing my skin color is all that happens, I'll be lucky." Then she stiffened, her back arching, and she hissed a breath out through gritted teeth, and moaned in pain. As the wave receded, she relaxed, only to stiffen again with a soft cry. 

                Her hand curled tightly around his, and he winced at the strength of her grip. "I'm here," he said, reaching out to stroke her sweat-soaked hair. "I'm here."

                **Hank,** came Xavier's voice in his mind. **She's beginning to mutate again. You can't stay. Come out now. You can go back in when the wave passes.**

                He put Amanda's hand down reluctantly, with difficulty since she was gripping it so hard, and took a step back from the bed. Her eyes flew open, and she stretched her hand out toward him. "Don't leave me." Her voice was barely above a whisper, a strained sound forced out of a throat constricted with pain and the effort of not screaming. "Please, Hank, don't leave me."

                Hank backed away, feeling his own throat tighten with unshed tears. "I'll be back, Amanda," he said quietly. "I promise. I'll be back." He turned around, not wanting to see the look in her eyes.

                "Hank," and she was pleading now. "Hank, please don't leave me, I can't do this by myself, please, Hank, please, I love you, don't leave me!" She was crying now, tears flowing down her cheeks, and Hank turned back. He couldn't leave her, not like this, when she was in pain and she needed him so much.

                He grabbed her hand as he fell to his knees beside her bed. "Amanda, I won't leave," he said, pressing her white knuckles to his lips. "I won't leave, I will stay here with you."

                **Hank,** came Xavier's warning voice. **You can't stay! If her mutation's dangerous she could hurt you unwittingly. You can't stay, Hank. Come out of there.**

                _No,_ Hank thought. _No, Charles, I can't. I can't leave her here to go through this alone. Even if I am risking my own life—and I do not believe I am--her mutation seems to be mere hypopigmentation (loss of color in her dermal layers) I'm willing to take that risk. She needs me, Charles. _And nothing was going to make him leave.

                Charles sighed. **Very well, Hank.**

                Over the next few hours the pain came and went in waves. Amanda had brief moments of lucidity, where she could talk and respond, and Hank spent most of that time holding cups of ice water to her lips so she could drink, trying to soothe her raw throat. He broke protein and power bars into small pieces so that she could eat a little to keep her strength up, but he was appalled at the toll the mutation was taking on her body.

                The process of mutation, begun at puberty, was a difficult enough process for the individual going through the mutation. He remembered being perpetually hungry, the process of mutation taking so much bodily energy that the only way to supply the extra energy the body needed to simply perform the basic biological functions was by eating. Huge amounts, quite frequently.

                Apparently Amanda's mutation worked the same way, just on a far more accelerated rate. Her body was consuming so much energy it was dissolving her energy stores, the fatty layer under the skin that everyone had, in order to fuel the mutation and keep her alive. Amanda didn't have much body fat to begin with. Hank was incredibly grateful for his foresight in installing an IV, as Amanda had done, installing a nutrient feed for her second rodent subject. If he hadn't, she might very well be dead now.

                He sighed and put the cup down as her body spasmed again. Her lucid periods were becoming increasingly shorter and shorter now. He put the rest of the energy bar on the table beside the cup and examined her body. 

                During one of her quieter moments he had removed her clothing and covered her with a blanket. She'd blushed, but didn't complain; after all, he'd seen her nude more than once.

                The hypopigmentation had spread. Outward from the injection site at first, then down her arm. Once her arm was transformed, it had spread across her chest. The white skin was now creeping at an incredible rate downward from her breasts, to her waist, and was now at her hips. Hank could literally see the skin transforming before his eyes. And it seemed to be incredibly painful; Amanda had lost her voice about three hours after the transformation had begun. 

                He continued to hold her hand, allowing her to grip and squeeze his hand as she tried to control and handle the pain. He whispered soothing sounds in her ear, stroked the tangled, sweat-soaked hair back from her forehead, and wiped her face occasionally with a damp cloth. She couldn't speak, but in the few quiet moments she had, her eyes had been full of grateful tears. 

                "Don't try to talk," he said quietly. "Save your strength." He held the straw of the cup to her lisp again.

                Six hours later, he was exhausted, both emotionally and physically, and Amanda was beyond recognizing anything. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was rapid, shallow, and harsh in her throat, and her grip had loosened. The only sign that she was still alive was the occasional spasm or jerk of her body as another wave of pain wracked her. 

                Jean came in. "Hank," she said gently. "It's been almost twelve hours. Amanda won't notice if you go and grab a bite, or some rest. She's past noticing anything now. There's dinner waiting for you upstairs."

                Hank shook his head, looking down at the still form of the girl on the bed in front of them. "I cannot, Jean. Amanda needs me, and I promised her that I would not leave her. I cannot leave."

                Jean reached gently into his mind. "Hank, you won't be leaving her, just refreshing yourself. Go on." She emphasized her suggestion with a quiet telepathic nudge.

                Hank relented. "I'll be right back," he said to Jean.

                She took his seat beside Amanda's bed.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Hank opened his eyes slowly, and rubbed them. They felt like someone had rubbed sandpaper into them. Maybe whoever was shaking him had poured something gritty into his eyes. Bobby had done that to him once. It had hurt like hell too.

                "Hank?" the voice wasn't Bobby's. It was "Warren?"

                "Yeah, it's me," Warren said, giving him a hand up out of bed. "Something's wrong downstairs. Everyone else's asleep. I figured I'd call you."

                Hank was instantly awake, and loping down the hallway as Warren ran behind him. "What exactly is wrong?" he asked as they ran.

                "I don't know," Warren told him. "The monitors all seem all right, nothing changed, but she's started like, yanking at her restraints. And her left arm keeps reaching for her shoulder, like she's trying to scratch an itch. Her skin's all swollen there…"

                Hank rounded the corner and skidded to a halt in front of the observation window, eyes wide. Amanda was having seizures, it looked like her upper body was trying to lunge up from the table, and her free arm was flailing around. "Warren!" Hank bellowed, grabbing a couple of straps. "Hold her while I strap this arm down before she hurts herself!"

                He tried several times to catch Amanda's left arm, and failed. She kept pulling her arm out of  his grasp and clawing at her shoulder, raking it with her fingernails, drawing blood from the broken skin. Her eyes were still tightly closed, but Hank could see that her entire lower body had gone white. All that was left was her throat and face.

                He finally captured her arm in a firmer grip than he would ordinarily use, and he hoped he wasn't grabbing her wrist hard enough to bruise of break it. She kept trying to twist her arm out of his grasp, and he pushed it down to the bed and tried to strap it down.

                Her eyes opened, and he nearly dropped her wrist. The white pallor of her skin had spread over half her face, and he watched her eyes turn from their normal bluish-gray to a faded gray, and then to a startling, vivid _silver_. He recovered from his shock quickly, grabbed her wrist, and tried to strap it down when a sound made him freeze.

                "Hank." The voice was hardly recognizable as hers, her throat was so raw from screaming. He leaned over her as she spoke again. "Hank. No."

                "No what?" 

                She went suddenly wild again, crying out in pain as her arm scratched wildly at her shoulder. "Let me go." The whisper started so low he almost couldn't hear it, and built up volume as she repeated it until it was a loud, agonized scream. "let me go let me go let me go Let Me Go LET ME GO!"

                Warren suddenly began to unfasten the buckles holding her body down. "Warren, what are you doing!?" Hank cried.

                Warren didn't stop. "Hank, get that IV out of her arm, now! I don't have time to explain!" Hank got the needle out of Amanda's arm just as Warren unfastened the last buckle.

                Amanda shot up off the table and half-stumbled, half ran across the room, falling to her knees finally in the corner. Her body was so thin every bone stood out under her skin, and it only emphasized the obscenely grotesque swelling on her shoulderblades. As he and Warren watched, stunned, the swollen lumps protruded, ugly and terrifying, on her shoulders. Amanda screamed and reached backeward with both hands, digging her nails into the lumps awkwardly. Blood ran from them, and Hank was about to run to her, capture her hands and keep her from ripping the skin off her shoulders when Warren stopped him. "Wait," he said.

                The skin on those bumps bulged, then split under her nails, and Hank stared in shock as something gray pushed itself out of her shoulders. Crying with relief, Amanda slumped to the floor, and Hank barely noticed her hair turning silver as the gray, membraneous things unfolded, much like a butterfly's wings when the adult emerged from its chrysalis, and resolved into a pair of shiny, wet, crystal clear, slightly iridescent wings. 


	11. Coping

Chapter 11:

                She was still asleep.

                She looked so peaceful asleep, lying on her stomach there, that he didn't have the heart to wake her. Time enough when she woke up on her own for the reality of her situation to hit her, as he was certain it would.

                He stroked her hair with the hairbrush again, patiently untangling the long silver locks. He'd loved the long auburn curls she had before, but the eggshell curls she had now looked better on her pale skin. And the wings sprouting proudly from her back, clear delicate filmy things with a faint rainbow sheen on them, reminded him of butterfly's wings.

                He had put a hospital gown, open in the back, on her for now, but she was either going to have to buy new clothes or alter her old ones. Regular T-shirts weren't built to accommodate wings.

                "Hey Hank?"

                He turned, saw Warren in the door, and waved his friend in. "Come in."

                Warren held a bundle of cloth in his hand. "Betsy dug it out for me," he said, unfolding it and holding it up. "It's too small for me, and it's going to be too big for her, but it's something she can wear, at least until she can get her own clothes altered."

                Hank looked at the blue T-shirt, with two neatly-cut and stitched holes for wings on either side of a back seam. "Your thoughtfulness is greatly appreciated, Warren," he said as he looked at it.

                "Yes it is," said a soft voice from the bed. Hank looked down, and saw Amanda's eyes were open. Those silver eyes were going to take some getting used to.

                "I'm not looking forward to having to alter all my clothes," she said dryly, pushing herself up to a sitting position. The effort left her panting and gasping, and both men went around to the sides of her bed, taking her arm and pulling her upright. "Take it easy," Warren told her soothingly. "You're awfully weak."

                "No kidding," Amanda said, taking the cup of water Hank handed her. "I feel like someone ran me through the wringer. How long have I been asleep?"

                "Three days," Hank said quietly.

                Amanda stared. "_Three days?_ My God, no wonder I feel like crap." She turned her head, looked at the wings sprouting on her shoulder, and said dryly, "That might be part of the problem." She ran a hand through her hair, and made a face. "I could use a good hot bath, too. I wonder if these things are waterproof?"

                Warren looked amused. "Let me leave you two then," he said. "I'm glad you're okay, Amanda." He leaned in and gave her a hug, then turned and left.

                Hank reached around her, helping her slide off the bed, and she finally stood upright, swaying a tiny bit. She eventually found her balance and walked across the room, albeit a bit unsteadily, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hands went to her white face and she gave a small gasp of dismay.

                "What's wrong?" Hank said to her.

                "I…I…look at me," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. She reached behind her, yanking at the strings holding her gown closed, and untied it, letting it fall to the floor. She sucked in a sharp breath.

                She had lost a lot of her body weight and mass during her transformation. Her ribs stood out under her skin in sharp relief, and her hip bones protruded painfully far from her body. The deep hollows under her ribs showed how much muscle she had lost. There was no abdominal definition left at all.

                She looked off to the side and saw Hank's scale. She stepped on it, adjusted the weights, and blinked in startlement. "I used to weigh one thirty," she whispered. "Now I'm barely eighty-five! God, it's a wonder I'm still alive!"

                Hank said, "Amanda, if those wings are to be functional, as I believe they are, you would need to weigh less if you wanted to get off the ground. There were changes to your bone structure that made them lighter and less dense. I recorded all the data I gathered while you were transforming into hard copy later, if you want to read it." But Amanda wasn't listening. She'd turned around, looking at her back reflected in the mirror. There was still a red, irritated, inflamed area around the base of each wing. "I have been applying salve to the area immediately under your new appendages," Hank said. "The irritated skin should clear up in another few days."

                "I don't know how you can even stand to look at me," Amanda whispered, turning sharply away from the mirror and pulling the gown up over her chest. "I look so ugly."

                Hank blinked. "Ugly is not the word I would use, beloved," he said quietly. "Aesthetically pleasing, maybe."

                She looked at him in disbelief. "You like me, even like this?" she said. "You still think I'm pretty?"

                "Of course. I love you, Amanda." Hank peered at her over the rim of his glasses, surprised at her reaction. She couldn't see how pretty she was? "Even if I did not love you, I would still consider you pretty. Look at yourself, Amanda. You look like a fairy out of the fairy tales I used to read when I was much younger. 

                "Jean and Jubilee stayed with you while I slept, and they have both said the same thing to me. You look beautiful, Amanda. Perhaps, when you become accustomed to your appearance, you will reach the same conclusion." Hank stood up. "Now I believe you were looking for a shower?"

                Amanda picked up the T-shirt that Warren had brought for her as Hank picked up her jeans, underclothing, and a towel from a nearby chair. "There is a showering facility just down the hall. You can take a quick shower here, and then I'll take you upstairs to your room."

                "My room?" Amanda turned to look at him.

                "Do you not remember?" Hank asked her. "It had been decided that you would stay here. Charles' decision has not wavered, and in fact has become even stronger in light of your mutation. Your apartment building does not allow mutants to live there, if you remember." 

                "Oh. Yeah." Amanda looked suddenly depressed. "I forgot."

                Hank watched her walk into the small bathroom. He waited to hear the water running before walking back into the medlab and turning off the monitors on the biobed. She would get used to her appearance, and maybe in time she would decide she really didn't look that bad at all. She was pretty, and he loved her, and he knew she loved him too.

                The water stopped running. He listened to the silence for a moment, then smiled as Amanda came in, dripping wet from her shower. "Feel better?"

                She nodded as she walked over to him and hugged him. "Much," she said. "Hank…"

                "Yes?" he said gently.

                "You never left me. All through that, you never left me."

                "I could not, Amanda," he said, taking the towel from her hands and reaching out to dry the wet droplets on her wings. "You were in such pain, and you begged me not to leave. I couldn't leave."

                "Thank you," she smiled at him, her old happy smile, one he hadn't seen in what felt like ages. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and squeezed him as tightly as he could.

                He didn't mind one bit.

*                                                              *                                                              *

Author's Notes:

                I had gotten used to using the last chapter of my books as Authors' Notes to clear my mind of everything related to the story and to clear the slate, as it were, for the next one. As it appears that chapters aren't to be devoted to this purpose, I'm going to have to insert short ones at the end of the books from now on.

                Thanks to Anything But Ordinary, for the inspiration for this story, and for its sequel (hey, you knew there was going to be another one, right? Almost all the stuff I write is two-fers or trilogies). I don't know when I'm going to start writing it; probably in the next day or so if all goes well and the old think tank keeps working properly, and you should see the first chapter by the end of this week. So hopefully I will see you all then, and if not, well, I hope you all liked the story!

Sincerely,

Jaenelle


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